A Lesson in Patience
by expiry 4.23
Summary: AU. Instead of dying, Severus' soul is sent to a place he thought impossible - into the body of himself in another world. It's a world free of Dark Lords and debts to Dumbledore, but it bears a catch: no magic. SSHP slash.
1. Part I

**Summary:** AU. Instead of dying, Severus' soul is sent to a place he thought impossible - into the body of himself in another world. It's a world free of Dark Lords and debts to Dumbledore, but it bears a catch: no magic. SSHP slash.  
**Rating:** PG-15  
**Pairing:** SS/HP (main); mentions of past SS/LE, HP/GW, and JP/LE  
**Warnings:** swearing, slash, non-magic, brief mention of past abuse  
**Disclaimer:** I only wish this universe belonged to me.

**Author's note:** I mean this to be a one-shot in four or five parts - short, probably under 20,000 words (if it even reaches that). I deal with a concept that is unoriginal - the non-magic AU. The difference in this one is that Severus can still use magic even though the others cannot; that is very important to the plot. You'll notice that Severus seems frazzled in the beginning of this and not at all his usual subtle, prudent self; he ends up revealing more information than he normally would. That I chalk up to the fact that only five minutes before his arrival here, he nearly died. And to the fact that he's in another universe. That might unsettle anyone. He'll go back to normal, I promise!! If you can wait it out then you'll hopefully be all the more satisfied when he regains his subtlety.

I also hope things don't move too quickly in this. Because it's a one-shot (or a four/five-shot, rather) it will of course have a faster pace than many multi-chaptered fics out there. But if you find that their relationship is actually moving unbelievably fast, just drop me a line in a review and I'll try to slow things down a bit and heighten the snark. I want them to remain in character as much as possible.

Harry's character will be very different than it is in the books, due to the fact that he was raised primarily by Lily and _then_ the Dursleys. He will be calmer and less impulsive. I hope that isn't too infuriating either. It too is imperative to the plot that he be calmer. He loses some of his cool along the way too, though, rest assured.

After that long-winded extravaganza I've probably lost about half of my readers. Oh well! On with the fic!

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

_A Lesson in Patience_  
Part I

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

He wasn't sure what had happened - one minute he remembered dying in the Shrieking Shack, asking to see Lily's eyes one last time, and the next he was here, staring into those same startling green orbs as he lay on the ground of what should have been the Quidditch pitch but very clearly wasn't: there were no goal posts, but rather large, deep nets that stretched across poles a metre and a half apart. The green, too, was pock-marked and ill-kept, with bits of grass torn up as though many bodies wearing spiked shoes had run its length and width many times before.

Severus swallowed and looked up into the face that held those unforgettable eyes: messy hair, glasses - unmistakeably Harry Potter. Only he wasn't sneering; he looked merely concerned. And he wasn't bloodied and sweat-streaked from battle.

The boy frowned, looking Severus up and down. "Sir, are you all right?" he asked.

"Of course I'm all right, Potter. Help me up," he snapped. As Potter did so, he added, "Is the Dark Lord neutralised?"

Potter stilled. "Come again?" he said slowly.

"The Dark Lord!" Severus barked. Merlin, there wasn't time for such foolishness! "Has he been eradicated? Snuffed out? Brought down? _Killed,_ Potter. Have you _killed _him yet?"

Potter drew back hesitantly, face closing off. "I haven't...killed...anyone," he said in that same soft, slow voice. "What are you talking about?"

He was studying Severus very meticulously, but with an air of detachment as well. Severus recognised that look: it was the same one Lily wore when they had partnered together in Potions all those years ago. Whenever something did not go quite right with their work, her eyes narrowed _just so_ and her postured straightened _just like that_ and her head tilted _ever so slightly to the side_ as she studied the flawed attempt before her and endeavoured to reason out what had gone south and when.

Severus did not know this Harry Potter. This Harry Potter was too much like his mother. And there was no scar upon his forehead. And, Merlin forbid, he was wearing a collared shirt, grey sweater-vest, black slacks and Birkenstock sandals. How had he missed this before?

"What in Merlin's blue blazes are you wearing, Potter?" Severus spat. "You look like the poster child for Muggle nancy boy boarding schools."

"Sir," the boy said calmly, "I think we should get you inside. Whatever it is that made you faint has clearly affected your mental faculties as well."

"I didn't faint," Severus snarled. "I do not faint!"

Potter's eyes widened a fraction. "Sir, I really do think - "

"No, you don't," Severus muttered darkly. "That's precisely your problem, Potter - you haven't the brain capacity to think, and so instead you run your mouth off incessantly which hardly gives us beings of higher intelligence any time in which to _think_."

Which was exactly what Severus needed to do. Think, _think_! Where was he? What was this place? The structures - the Gothic architecture - the greenery - it all _seemed_ familiar, but other things, other very key important details, were not. Potter was not. His lack of scar was not. His clothing was not, his facial expressions were not - bloody hell, even his sodding glasses were not! Where were the horrid round frames that had always made the boy look like a bug? When had he replaced them?

Potter's lips twisted into a frown. Severus recognised that look too: it was the same one Lily wore when she told him to stop hanging out with people like Nott and Avery. Disappointment, confusion, frustration, and annoyance. "Really, sir," Potter said, shaking his head, "there's absolutely no need to be rude."

"Stop doing that!" Severus snapped.

Potter looked very perplexed. "What?" he asked. "Sir, I haven't _done _anything but ask if you were all right - which you most obviously are not - and then I - "

"No, you idiot!" Severus yelled. "Being all calm and respectful! Behaving like your mother! Stop it, it isn't right!"

Potter was clearly at a loss. "Well...how shall I act, then, sir?" he asked dubiously.

"Loud, obnoxious. Arrogant, like your father." Severus was at wit's end. "We haven't time for this, Potter," he said suddenly. "I need to know where I am immediately."

"You're at Hogwarts' School of Refinery, obviously - "

"_Obviously_, nothing, you insolent - " and then the words sunk in. Severus stopped dead in his tracks. "Hogwarts' School of _Refinery_, you say," he repeated shakily.

Potter nodded. "Yes, sir. Most prestigious boarding school in Scotland, and one of the best in all of the UK. People come from all over to attend. You - " he swallowed suddenly and then smiled, as if at the ridiculousness of the situation. "Sir, you _teach_ here."

"What do I teach?" Severus hissed, grabbing Potter by the front of his stupid heather-grey sweater vest.

Potter winced. "Sciences, sir!"

"That does not narrow it down," Severus ground out, shaking Potter a bit. "Honestly, you idiotic child, how in the world are we to get _anywhere_ if you do not give me specifics?"

"Sir!" Potter said, sounding uncomfortable. "Let me go, please?"

"What?" Severus blinked."Oh." He shoved Potter away. "Better?" he sneered.

"Thanks," Potter said with a frown. "I didn't give you any specifics, sir, because...well..." he looked a bit helpless, "because actually, you teach a _lot_ of different ones. Physics, chemistry, and biology as the generals, but then you teach a couple advanced and concentration classes in Biochemistry and Psychopharmacology."

"How do you know all this? Are you a student here?" Severus' head was spinning. "You look too old to be seventeen." His lips curled nastily. "Were you _held back a few years_? I always knew you were too obtuse to graduate on your own merits. I could have sworn that Miss Granger was dragging you through by the skin of your teeth - "

Potter had a very tight expression on his face, as though he'd stopped himself mid-glower. "Sir," he said in as polite a tone as he could manage, "I am here because I am you T.A.!"

"My _what_?" Severus snapped, lurching forward.

Potter wisely anticipated this and took a step back. "Your T.A.! Your teaching assistant, sir! I run lab courses for you, I grade papers, I help you come up with lab assignments; I lecture in your stead when you cannot make it! I keep your notes in order, and I have my own lab sections but they are ultimately a part of your class!"

"My...teaching...assistant..." Severus repeated, brain moving too quickly. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-two, sir," Potter said, seeming to relax a fraction. "Just graduated from University of London last year, with a double major in Education and Physics."

Ah, a Muggle, then. This was all beginning to make sense - the mannerisms, the garb...and yet, it certainly complicated things to a degree higher than Severus had initially anticipated. If Severus had been more himself, a little less shaken by the fact that only moments before he'd been in the Dark Lord's presence and about to be devoured by a large, poisonous snake, he might have had the presence of mind to belt up and stop revealing how little he knew. One quick glance at the boy was all he needed to determine that as much as Potter wasn't Severus' Potter, _Severus_ wasn't _Potter's Severus_ at all.

Severus sneered, almost to himself. "Not chemistry, then? Of course not. I am not surprised. You never were all that good with _chemicals,_ were you," he said nastily. "Didn't have the patience or the appreciation for subtlety, as I recall."

Potter exhaled quietly. "No, I remember you telling me I was a terror in the Chem lab. I'm sorry you had to deal with that."

"That makes two of us," Severus said grimly. "And yet you still plague me with your presence. Why may I never be rid of you?"

"Well...because you _asked _me back, sir," Potter said softly. "I was your best Physics student and we got on really well. When you offered I was smart enough to take you up on it."

"We...'got on'...'really well'..." Severus repeated faintly. "Oh, Merlin. We _'got on really well.'_"

Potter was gazing at him strangely again. "Well, yeah. I mean, I know we had our differences in the beginning - "

"Differences?!" Severus barked, "We _despise _each other!"

" - but we worked through them by the time I was in my third year and you've been lending me a hand ever since," Potter went on as if he hadn't heard. He looked shaken and pale, and for a second - only a second - Severus almost felt sorry for the boy. "Sir," Potter after a pause, "You really don't remember _any_ of this, do you."

Severus realised several things then. Several important things. The first was that he was scaring the boy, and for the first time in perhaps ever, it brought Severus only a sliver of satisfaction. A distressed Potter, in his experience, was a useless Potter; Severus would do well to keep the boy - er, _young man - _as calm as possible.

The second thing Severus realised was that he had very few choices. He could play the amnesia tactic, but things may grow to be unnecessarily complicated as time wore on and his memories did not return, or when he remembered certain details (like names and places and his way around the school) but not others (such as the fact that he was apparently the teacher of five incredibly complicated Muggle sciences and had actually grown fond of James Potter's infuriating son).

He could also go the Gryffindor route and foolishly confess his being from another plane of existence: one where magic was prevalent and up until what felt, to Severus, like five minutes ago, a Dark Lord and his henchmen had been storming this very castle and the surrounding village of Hogsmeade. But this approach was rather foolish as well: Severus had garnered very little information regarding Potter's character, merely his relationship with Severus. He had no idea how the young man (who was obviously raised Muggle) would react to being told about magic wands and flying broomsticks and creatures that were not quite human.

Even if Severus could prove it to Potter - and he could; he felt the familiar comforting presence of his wand, somehow carefully placed up the sleeve of this ridiculous collared-shirted, tweed-suit-jacketed, khaki-dress-trousered, Remus-Lupin-like monstrosity - there was nothing to say that the young man would not panic and report Severus to the Muggle authorities.

And so Severus came to the final thought: he was out of ideas. Completely reliant on Potter, in a world he knew nothing about save what little he'd managed to glean from a few minutes' conversation with the young man. Which really wasn't very much.

Merlin save him. How had he gotten into this position?

"Sir," Potter said again, "Maybe you should go home, take the rest of the afternoon off."

That was an idea. If left to his own devices in the chambers of _this world's _Severus Snape, Severus could likely find out what he needed to know. Perhaps the man kept an address book or rolodex, or (Merlin forbid) a journal. And he was sure to have volume upon volume of subjects pertaining to his classes...Potter had said he kept the man's notes for him, but maybe Severus prudently held onto some of the more delicate ones himself; it sounded like something Severus would do. Muggle professors had to get their Doctorate of Sciences before they were permitted to teach at an accredited secondary or university, were they not? Perhaps Severus had a copy of his thesis (or multiple theses; who knew?) lying around.

The snag in that plan came, however, in Potter's next words:

"Um, sir, where are you going? Hogsmeade station is this way."

"Yes, Potter," Severus sneered, "The castle is this way." Then he paused suspiciously. "Why are we not going to the castle? Why are we going to Hogsmeade station?"

Potter looked uncomfortable. "You take the train home everyday. Sir."

He took the _train_ home everyday. He took the train _home_ everyday! Where did he _live_?

As if sensing his confusion, Potter said very awkwardly, "The on-campus teacher housing is just for...visiting professors. You know, international professors just here for the semester...or the year or...I mean...most everyone else lives off-site, with their...families...or whatever..."

Severus was silent.

"Well, it's like uni, isn't it. Professors only live there if they've nowhere else to go..." Potter finally looked at a loss. "I'm sorry, sir. That you can't - " he cleared his throat - "that you've temporarily taken leave of your memories. It's...um. It's most unfortunate."

"Yes," was all Severus said, because now they were facing a larger problem: he had no idea where to go. "Perhaps you could direct me to the office?" he added nastily.

"So you can get your keys and check your driver's license to see if maybe that solves anything?" Potter hazarded.

Perceptive boy. But Severus would never admit that. He gave a non-committal grunt. "Well, hurry along, you dunderhead," he snapped. "I haven't got all day."

Potter snapped to attention, and together they made their way back to the dungeons in complete silence.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

The train ride was bumpy and rather unpleasant; Potter was with him all the way, too, as infuriating as can be. More infuriating still, the blasted kid had his _bicycle_ with him. When Severus had pointed out that it was quite a far distance for Potter to be riding back and forth everyday ("How far did you say? Twenty kilometres? Twice a day? Merlin, Potter, have you a death wise?") Potter's response had been that he liked the exercise, and besides, twenty kilometres was "only about 12.6 miles; well, 12.56 to be exact."

To which Severus had snarled, "I know metric conversions, you idiot! I know derived and standard and international units! I'm a bloody Po-- _chemistry and physics _professor!"

There was more silence after that, only to be broken when Potter said, "Our stop is coming up next."

"Our stop?" Severus repeated faintly. "Merlin help me. You cannot tell me you live down the way from me."

Potter, who was clearly tiring of the Potions Master's surliness but trying his very hardest not to let on, gave a tight smile and said, "I have since I came back to assistant teach, sir. It was a funny coincidence, really, but I assure you - a coincidence only."

"Hmm."

They got off the train and Potter starting walking in one direction while saying simultaneous, "Your house is over there." He gestured vaguely. "Number Nine." Then he paused, as though struck by a crisis of conscience and finally losing the war against it rather spectacularly. With an irritated shake of his head, he grabbed a piece of loose leaf and a biro from his shoulder bag and scribbled something on it quickly then thrust it at Severus before he could change his mind.

"What's this?" Severus said nastily, staring down at the numbers in front of him. But he knew very well what it was. Tobias Snape had been a Muggle, after all; Severus was no stranger to the Muggle world.

Potter had an awful sort of look on his face. "My phone number, sir. It's my phone number. Since you've probably forgotten it. In case..." he looked pained to say it, "In case you run into a spot of bother and need some assistance."

And with that he was off, ungainly bicycle and all, and Severus was alone again with no idea what to do.

As much as Severus was loathe to admit it, Potter was his only link to this strange world. If he and Potter truly were as close as Potter suggested - had moved past the animosity and were working together as teacher and assistant - then Severus would be relying on the boy rather heavily until he figured out what in the hell was going on.

Severus sighed as he made his way through this strange house. The first thing he thought to himself was that it was rather small; a more politically correct term, he supposed, would be "quaint," but Severus placed little stake in political correctness unless he was dealing with the Dark Lord or the Headmaster - two wizards with whom prudence and subtlety were higher recommended. The Dark Lord's followers, too, required a certain degree of delicacy in each exchange.

With everyone else - children especially - Severus recommended bluntness. And insults. Plenty of really cutting, debilitating insults. There was little else he figured they would understand.

Severus made his way into what must have been the study and took a look around. Just as he had suspected, there were volumes upon volumes on the shelves - Advanced Mathematics and Statistics; Astrophysics; Quantum Mechanics; Biochemistry and the Atomic Element; Electricity. More texts than Severus had seen in a long time, for there were more here than even in his private study back home. And all on subjects about which Severus knew virtually nothing.

And he was supposed to teach all this? Oh, Merlin.

He sat down at the desk - mahogany, he noted appraisingly - and began opening and closing the drawers, hoping against hope that he would find a lesson plan, some notes on a reading, or better yet, his bloody dissertation. He found very little in the way of all that, however; he found a few stray lab reports and physics problem sets, but they were all. Each had clearly been marked down due to the fact that the student had initially forgotten to write his or her name at the top. How peculiar! Instead of just giving the work a zero as Severus would have done in his Potions class, this Doppelganger Snape had simply docked them 10 and recollected the assignments once they'd been rightfully claimed.

Severus sneered lightly at this. Docking points in lieu of doling out zeros? Befriending Harry Potter? He was beginning to think the Severus Snape of this world was very _soft_.

Then he discovered something strange. The top drawer was locked. Severus frowned at this; what would he think so important as to keep under lock and key? Severus tried to think of what he himself would keep locked up: pictures of Lily from when they kids, perhaps. Or nefarious plans to carry out his dreams of poisoning the headmaster. He admired Albus Dumbledore immensely, really, but he was kidding himself beyond belief if he claimed not to occasionally wish harm upon the man...

Or perhaps it would be filled with damning photographs he intended to use for blackmail. Or very important notes, perhaps, for a book or journal he meant to publish.

All Severus knew was that whatever this Other Universe Severus kept locked within that drawer held more information about him than Severus could ever gather from the volumes on his shelves or the class notes Potter allegedly kept for him in his shoulder bag.

Severus grabbed his key ring and started trying out the different keys - and Merlin, there were a lot of different keys. He was about to grab his wand and just blast the thing when he finally found the right one and got the bloody drawer open. The contents of the very secret drawer now unearthed, Severus found among them no top secret plans of world domination; nor did he find any incriminating photographs or very private diaries.

What he found was far more interesting (and terrifying) than all of those items combined: the drawer was filled to bursting with old, already opened envelopes, each thick and containing several folded sheets of loose leaf paper that looked nothing like the typed lab reports and neatly-written problem sets. He pulled them out and felt his blood run cold. Each and every one was addressed to him in the same familiar handwriting he'd spent years damning as he annihilated one horrific Potions essay after another.

And each envelope had one of two return addresses: a certain mailbox at the University of London or that of a flat in London's East End.

These were four years' worth of letters from Harry Potter.

These letters would certainly give Severus a better feel for his relationship with the boy. And after all, it wasn't _really_ snooping if it was Severus' own mail, right? Of course right.

_Well_, Severus thought to himself wryly as he picked up the envelope at the very back of the drawer (postmarked 27th August 1998), _I might as well begin at the beginning_.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

AN: Hope to see you in Part II! Tell me if you think it's worth continuing, or even if you think it's total crap!


	2. Part II

**Summary:** AU. Instead of dying, Severus' soul is sent to a place he thought impossible -- into the body of himself in another world. It's a world free of Dark Lords and debts to Dumbledore, but it bears a catch: no magic. SSHP slash.  
**Rating:** PG-15  
**Pairing:** SS/HP (main); mentions of past SS/LE, HP/GW, and JP/LE; mentions of unrequited DM/HP  
**Warnings:** swearing, slash, non-magic, brief mention of past abuse  
**Disclaimer:** Still not mine. Give it time.

**Author's note:** The city council had planned years ago to build a multiplex sports arena in the city near where I live, so they blew a whole bunch of money on an Astroturf green and then just...didn't build the rest of it. So there's this huge Astroturf green that's meant to be a sports pitch of some kind and instead kids just chill there eating ice cream and stuff. For no other reason than the fact that it's there for chilling.

A similar metaphor could be used to describe this chapter (hahaha, sorry, I had to). In true Rhint-fashion, it seems that I just start writing and then don't stop and then pages get away from me. And plans I had for Part II just aren't carried through, and then you have to wait for the next instalment. There is a weird amount of melodrama and excitement -- yes, excitement, which I guess is really my way of saying they get way too emotional way too quickly; it's really perplexing how I just default to that -- in this part, but none of the revelations and reveals I had planned. And one could say it's just really unnecessary, but melodrama can be fun (if you're not surrounded by 13-year-old girls) and at least it's believable if you think on how emotionally volatile both Sev and Harry tend to be.

Even so...there's an Astroturf foundation of words here, but no multiplex sports arena. Yet. But there's the difference, right? We may never see our multiplex since the 'turf has become our city's claim to fame, but you will see your...Metaphorical Multiplex of Revelations (yeah, I went there, and you should probably just leave right now) in Part III. I promise!

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

_A Lesson in Patience_

Part II

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

_Dear Professor, _the letter began,  
_Just__ moved into my dorm and am finding it surprisingly nice -- my roommate is a real meathead but that's to be expected I suppose..._

Severus skimmed a bit, highly uninterested in meathead roommates.

..._and now he's got this girlfriend who's nothing like Pansy or Adrienne or Padma -- _Severus frowned. Who was the boy talking about? He went back to the top of the sentence and discovered that Potter was talking about Draco Malfoy. How peculiar!

_...she's really tall and thin and beautiful, looks like a model, but it doesn't look healthy. I think she's anorexic. But he doesn't seem to care. Thinks it's crackling. Calls her "lollipop" like it's some sort of compliment. I suppose it is, but I can see she really isn't happy..._

Severus sighed heavily. His Alter-Ego had _kept_ this mindless drivel? Potter wrote like he was writing in a diary! Incomplete sentences! Teenage slang! (Severus caught the words "brill" and "props" here and there and nearly shuddered.) This was hardly the appropriate tone for addressing a former professor. Severus had half a mind to march over to the boy's house and make him write lines right here and now: a solid 500 times of "I will not write to my professors as though I am writing in a diary" ought to drill the message into Potter's head...

At least this told him something, though -- Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy had not only known each other at Hogwarts but they'd also grown to be friendly as well, at the very least. Did this mean that Draco attended university with Potter or that the boys kept touch through other means?

Severus picked up the next letter and began reading.

_Dear Professor, _the next one read,  
_It was so lovely to hear from you; the comment about my colloquial tone has been duly noted. _

Aha! Severus thought triumphantly. So this Other Severus did have some sense after all. But he frowned as he reread the first clause of the sentence and realised with dismay that it implied that he had been keeping correspondence with the boy -- correspondence that most likely went beyond a scathing comment for Potter to shape up his writing style. Other Severus had almost definitely writing to the child with a certain fondness that made _this_ Severus rather ill to think on.

_In answer to your question, yes, there is a core requirement I have to fulfil. The maths and sciences won't be difficult for me, of course, but I'm not looking forward to the humanities-based courses. Who knows, though? They may prove useful in the long run._

They had, Severus thought grimly. For now the blasted boy was a bloody teacher, and a bloody thorn in Severus' side to boot.

_The professors are incredible, of course. They really and truly know their subjects in and out. It reminds me of that lecture you gave me a year back when we were walking along the lake --_

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Severus had taken _leisurely strolls_ with the boy _by the lake_? And given him friendly advice? Oh Merlin no!

_-- and you told me that if one is truly going to be a professor of a subject, he or she must be familiar with the subject from every angle to the point that he/she could gut it, dissect it, analyse the entrails, and then reassemble it again so an onlooker would never suspect it's been taken apart, all in the matter of a two-hour lecture period. That one stuck with me, and that's why if I really do intend on becoming a teacher, I will acquire as much knowledge as possible. I want to really know what I teach._

Severus had said all that? And Potter had not only listened but taken it to heart? That brought a genuine grimace to his face. He wasn't even going to touch that one. Too easy. And too heart-wrenchingly sickening. He threw down the letter in disgust and picked up the next one.

_Dear Professor,  
I've decided, once and for all, that this is what I want to do. It's not just because of your encouragement --_

Severus sighed long-sufferingly.

_-- it's because of the children as well. For my education class we went into the East End today and worked with kids who were underprivileged; some even had several behavioural issues and learning disabilities that had their teachers at wit's end. Their usual approach of "just toss the kid into the water -- it's sink or swim, and they've got to learn sometime" had never worked and the children were acting out horrendously. One boy, age eight, even bit another kid and the other boy needed sutures. _

_But I figured it was sort of like my experiences at primary; what with mum gone a lot I sort of had no one. And then with the Dursleys, well, you know all about that. So I knew from experiences with the other boys that bullying and abuse at home often makes children act out; being ignored is no different. I thought maybe much of what these kids needed was not to be punished but rather to be listened to and then instructed, rather than just yelled at. It actually worked!_

Severus had really had enough of this. He tossed the letter aside and sighed again more heavily, placing his head in his hands. What in the bloody hell was this? Was he really supposed to read all of these? There were over fifty, at least! He shuffled through them and grabbed one closer to the front, most likely from Potter's third or fourth year at university. Expecting more mindless drivel, he opened it and readied himself for the brain-sucking idiotic rubbish that would be the bane of his evening.

_Dear Professor_, it read,  
_I don't know what to do about Draco. He's beside himself now and all the usual tactics for trying to calm him down seem to fall flat. He's wigging out about every insignificant thing -- I mention something mundane and he somehow brings it back to Josie. And every time I try to calm him down he just flips again. I tell him that she's fine and independent and she'll rock her way through this thing but he just freaks out at me and says, 'I don't care that we're best mates. How can you say that? How can you sound so sure when you don't know? Don't promise me things if you can't be sure they're true!'_

_...Then he started in about how 'little I eat' which is absurd when I actually eat more than he does and, besides, I've already told him about the food allergies and the fact that because of the Dursleys' mistreatment there are just a lot of foods my stomach wasn't trained to tolerate. He just wouldn't listen to reason, though. Said that I was going the way of Josie and he wouldn't have it and one anorexic mate was enough and I couldn't make him realise how unbelievably mad he was being..._

So Potter and Draco were 'best mates,' as Draco had put it. And Draco was not only Potter's best mate, he was also rather...open with Potter about his feelings of anger and distress. The Josie girl was obviously the anorexic girlfriend Potter had mentioned in the first letter, though Draco had said "one anorexic mate was enough," which suggested he and Miss...Josie were no longer an item.

Potter had said in an earlier letter that he was raised mostly by Lily, who was 'gone a lot', and then in this one revealed that the Dursleys' mistreatment of him had caused him to never acquire enzymes necessary to digest certain foods. That suggested two things. The first was that Lily Potter was no longer alive; remembrance of her always made Severus tense up a little...he had been hoping that maybe, just maybe, she was still alive in this universe and he might get to see her one more time. The second was that Potter had undergone chronic bouts of forced starvation, or at least the withholding of particular crucial food groups necessary for proper digestion. Was this why the boy was so small? With a frown, Severus went back to reading.

The letter continued,_ He's on my case about writing to you, too, and I don't know why but it really bothers him. He looked like he was about to go apoplectic last week, and while I know a lot of it is Josie-induced stress, I don't think that's all. He just began spewing nonsense, waxing lyrical about how improper it is to be writing a former professor and about how I may as well just profess my love for you right here right now. I said that that was ridiculous and I completely and utterly resented such allegations and how could he even suggest such a thing?_

Potter had said he was appalled by Draco's allegations, but...really...should he have been? They were not so far-fetched. Severus of course had only one side of the correspondence, but he knew without a doubt that his letters back to Potter had to be just as emotional to permit such openness from the boy. These letters almost could be professions of love, with a few words changed here or there. The tone was quite perfect.

_...Then Draco punched a hole in the wall -- which, really, was just unnecessary when you think about it, because what will the landlord say? And now we'll have to pay to get it fixed and we're running low on quid this month as is -- and stormed out and I just didn't know what to do. I don't know what to do even now, having had a solid week to think about it. I have never seen him like this. In all the years of being best mates, it's never been this volatile between us. _

_If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was in love with me._

Draco's possessiveness of Potter _did_ almost smack of love -- it was certainly fierce enough. His jealousy of Potter's correspondence with Severus was evidence enough. Did that suggest that Draco preferred the male gender? Or more importantly, since it was Potter with whom Severus would mostly be dealing, did _Potter_ prefer the male gender?

_...I hope you're well, and aren't grading the physics students too hard. You have a tendency to forget you're grading teenagers and not uni students. When I finish my B.A. and my Sc.D. --_

The boy was somehow getting his Bachelor's degree as well as his Doctorate of Sciences, both at the same time?! Impossible! Had he gotten special permission? It would be just like Potter to get special treatment. And yet, Severus had to be impressed. He had heard what those Doctorate programmes were like; the boy was obviously very driven. How did he have time to sleep and eat, let alone write letters to his former Physics professor?

_-- I will follow you up on that offer to come assistant teach for a year or so, because I've come up with a brilliant new way to teach circular motion that'll make it easier to grasp. Because, really, your method has gone stale!_

_Yours,  
Harry_

Merlin's bollocks. Severus was getting a migraine. '_Yours, Harry._' Somehow he knew that it was more than just a simple signature. Potter and Severus had obviously grown closer since the start of this letter exchange -- from lectures around the lake they had progressed to Potter pouring his heart out with almost reckless abandon, and poking fun at the man's teaching style. And Potter had signed the letter (Severus felt his breath catch again) '_yours_.'

Not even Lily had signed her letters so. She had written 'love,' of course, but Severus knew that she'd meant 'love as friends.' That letter had made Severus cry, he remembered with self-loathing.

But '_yours._' Potter was _his. _Severus shuddered.

No wonder the boy was so shaken when Severus had begun snarling at him, insulting him and behaving towards Potter as he always had. He obviously owed Potter an explanation, and this time he'd have to abandon all Slytherin sensibilities and tell him the truth: he wasn't the Severus Snape that Potter had come to admire and emulate and bare his soul to, and frankly, he could never be that Severus Snape.

And for another thing, Potter most certainly wasn't _his._ Severus would set the boy straight on that if it was the last thing he did.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

It was a simple matter of picking up the bloody phone and dialling the number. It wasn't rocket science, after all (though judging by the plethora of Astrophysics and Quantum Mechanics texts lining Severus' study shelves, rocket science probably would come easier).

A phone call. That's all it was. Severus sighed as he forced himself to pick up the telephone; he hadn't used one of these things since he was a kid. Before Hogwarts, it'd been his primary method of contact with Lily; true, they had lived within walking distance of one another, but it was only polite to warn someone before coming over. It showed ill-breeding to just burst in on someone unannounced.

This telephone, however, was nothing like the one Severus had had growing up in the Snape Household -- it was, well, rather modern. Bulky and boxy and seemingly electronic, it held no wires -- no curly cords attaching it to the wall. And the buttons were small and rubbery. There wasn't an infernal dial for him to spin a certain amount of times per number.

Severus frowned and looked at the piece of loose leaf on which Potter had written his number. With a sigh, Severus began to dial out.

On the second ring, Potter picked up. "Hello?" he said in a businesslike tone.

"It's Professor Snape," Severus said without preamble.

"I know," Potter said simply.

"You know?" Severus said, becoming irritated already.

"I have caller ID," Potter said, as though that were obvious, which annoyed Severus to no end, as _he_ did not have such a thing. When Severus remained silent, Potter added, "So that I can screen calls -- people I don't wish to talk to, like telemarketers and the like. As you are not a telemarketer, I picked up. Sir."

The boy was utterly infuriating. "Are you engaged at this present time?" Severus ground out.

"No, sir," Potter said, "but I'm not home either."

_What? _"What?" Severus demanded.

"This isn't my main line, sir," Potter said, in the same calm tone. "Or rather, it is my main line, but not my landline. It's my mobile."

"Your mobile."

"Yes -- you know, a mobile? Smallish, about the size of a deck of cards, has an antenna, fits in my pocket so I always have it on me -- "

"I know what a mobile is!" Severus snapped, even though he hadn't before Potter told him.

Potter continued as though he hadn't heard. "Yeah. You always take the piss a lot because there are newer, sleeker models on the market and I'm still mucking around with this prehistoric piece of rubbish."

"Hmm," Severus said noncommittally. It seemed every time he began to despise Potter a little less, he heard the boy's _infernal voice_ and was reminded of how impossible the boy was to stand!

"So," Potter said, cutting to the chase, "I suppose you didn't call just to insult me, amusing though that must be for you."

Severus frowned again, remembering the last letter he'd read and the fact that Potter had just in the course of a single afternoon lost his mentor completely. He'd try for a modicum of sympathy, or at least civility, if at all possible.

"No, as enjoyable as such an activity would be, that was not in fact the purpose of this call. I wanted -- " he swallowed; Merlin, this was harder than he'd expected! " -- that is, I thought it would in both our interests if I explained something to you." He paused. "In person."

There was silence on the other end of the line and Severus almost hoped Potter had hung up on him. Maybe then he wouldn't have to deal with this. "It is imperative to our professional relationship that I tell you what I mean to," Severus tried, putting a bit more emotion into his voice. "And it cannot -- I reiterate: _cannot_ -- be done over the wire. Especially on a mobile whose transmitter signals can be picked up by any satellite device."

Potter sighed and then said grimly, in a tone Severus had heard oh so often from Lily Evans when he'd done something that really peeved her, "Are you going to apologise for your crap treatment of me?"

"Language, Potter," Severus said automatically and caustically, but then exhaled quietly, forced himself to calm down, and said, "Yes, I will. But I cannot guarantee it will not happen again, and that is why we must talk. There are things you must understand."

Potter seemed to relent then. "Okay, sir," he said sharply. "I'll be home at half-seven. You may come by then. Are you planning to stay for dinner or shall I cook for myself?"

A dinner date with Potter? Severus sneered. How revolting! Nevertheless, he couldn't cook. He'd never learned, and besides, he did not know what there was to eat in his house -- let alone how to use a stove. Yet again, Potter was his only option. Oh how he loathed relying on others...

"I shall join you," he said, as though he'd swallowed something nasty.

"Good. See you at half-seven, then. Goodbye, sir." And without giving Severus a chance to say goodbye himself, Potter hung up.

Impudent whelp!

Still, it was just as well that the boy was not a sentimentalist on the phone; the brief exchange had left Severus with a few hours to kill...which meant time for planning. How to go about this great reveal he'd planned? He should bring his wand, of course, so he could offer Potter proof when the boy asked for it. Severus wished a Calming Draught had magically arrived with him just as his wand had -- just in case Potter got too excited -- but alas, such things were not meant to be.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

"You're early, sir," Potter observed with a frown.

"Very astute, Mr. Potter," Severus muttered, walking through the door and into Potter's foyer. He looked around. It was a nice place, to be sure, but much like Severus' in that it was quite cosy and small.

"Well. Dinner isn't ready yet, so...I suppose you're welcome to take a seat in the living room. Such that it is."

Severus glanced at the 'living room' Potter had indicated -- a couch and an old loveseat in front of a small wooden table with a telly on it, all situated a mere metre and a half from the kitchen. It was a very tight space. Severus gave Potter a curt nod of thanks and walked over to the couch, sitting awkwardly.

"Can I get you anything, sir?" Potter asked, ever the host.

"A water might be nice, if it's not too much trouble," Severus said with a forced politeness that felt foreign on his tongue.

"Not at all." Potter got him a glass of ice water and came to sit down on the loveseat opposite Severus.

Severus noticed that Potter had a large clear plastic bottle seated on the countertop. It was half-full with water. The bottle was immense -- it must have capacity to hold over 1000 mL of liquid. Severus frowned more deeply at this. How could one person drink that much in one sitting? "Thirsty?" he asked derisively.

"No more so than usual," Potter returned with a muted glare. He took a long sip from the water bottle, as if using his drink as a means to calm himself down. "It keeps me hydrated."

"I'll say."

They sat awkwardly for a tick. Then a tick longer. Finally, just as the silence was becoming unbearable, something in the kitchen beeped. "Thank god," Potter muttered under his breath and stood so suddenly Severus was shocked the boy didn't overbalance. "It's ready," he added unnecessary, just for the sake of having something to say.

"Yes, obviously -- I assumed that was what the strident beeping noise indicated," Severus snapped back, very unnecessarily as well and simply because he felt it was expected of him by now.

Potter looked very resigned at the idea of dining with Severus. Well, Severus thought snidely, the feeling was mutual.

Potter had prepared some sort of vegetable dish -- caramelised onions, sautéed mushrooms, and green peppers -- with beans and mash as sides. It was unlike anything Severus had ever eaten in his life, and certainly unlike anything he'd ever seen Potter eat in _his_ world. Where was the steak and kidney pie? The little sausage bangers the brat was so fond of?

Whatever this dish was, however, it was quite good.

Potter's table manners had vastly improved as well, for which Severus was immensely grateful. He didn't think he could have stood the idea of eating with the Potter from his world.

More than once Severus found himself wondering how Potter had become such a good cook.

When they'd both finished, Potter began clearing the table and Severus was hit with a strange desire to offer his help. As if sensing his internal struggle, Potter shook his head a fraction and said, "Why don't you make yourself comfortable in the living room and I'll just get this sorted myself? You're the guest, after all. I'll be done in a jiff."

As Severus waited, he wondered for perhaps the hundredth time if he was doing the right thing by baring himself to Potter. So very many things could go wrong -- this was so delicate a situation, and one Severus had never been forced to deal with before. And then all too soon Potter was there, back in the loveseat, interrupting Severus' indecision and forcing him once again to take action.

"So," Potter said in that familiar businesslike tone. Severus was struck, yet again, by just how like Lily the boy was. "What did you want to talk to me about, sir?"

"Potter," Severus said, matching the boy's tone perfectly, "I am going to tell you something and I need your undivided attention as I do so." Potter sat up straighter at this. "I must be allowed to complete my explanation without interruptions. Any exclamations of disbelief and accusations regarding my alleged mental infirmity shall have to wait until I am finished. Is that clear?"

Potter nodded.

Well then. _Here we go_, thought Severus grimly. "You have probably noticed that I am behaving differently. Perhaps I have been a bit...harsh...with you, and for that I -- " his lip curled involuntarily and he thrice damned whichever sadistic deity had seen it fit to send him here instead of letting him die properly in the Shrieking Shack, " -- I _apologise_." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Potter quirk a smile at that, which just served to annoy him more.

"But foolish sentimentalities aside, I should give you a proper explanation as to why I have not been myself. It is not a simple case of amnesia as you no doubt suspect and hope; I will not regain lost memories and I will not return to my 'old self.' This is because -- "

Oh Merlin...Severus just had to do it. Just had to take the plunge. What was that old Muggle saying? That this was 'just like ripping off a bandage'? If Severus just did it quickly and with great intention, well, it would only hurt for a second, would it not? Wouldn't it?

Severus took breath to steady himself before continuing. "This is because I am not the Severus Snape you know. In fact, I have never been...your Severus Snape." He cleared his throat; his collar felt strangely tight. He attempted to loosen it. "I am _a particular _Severus Snape, but not yours. I am of a specific type. A type that is well acquainted with Potions instead of Chemistry and Physics, and with Potions Masteries instead of Doctorates of Science."

Silence.

Well, Merlin's blue bollocks, this was not going well at all. Severus was rambling -- rambling, if you please! And Severus Snape _did not ramble; _it just didn't _happen_ -- and Potter was looking more and more perplexed by the second. Time for bluntness. Time to rip off that bandage -- quickly, and with great intention.

"A wizard, Potter," Severus snarled. "I'm a wizard."

"A wizard," Potter said faintly, apparently forgetting he wasn't to interrupt.

"Yes. A wizard. I come from another plane of existence where there is magic and somehow -- Merlin only knows how, but I swear if I ever find out who did this I _will_ disembowel him or her completely and use the entrails for the nastiest of poisons, you mark my words -- somehow, I was transported here instead of _dying_ which I should have done and really just wish I'd been granted the opportunity to get on with. Things would be a lot less..._messy_ if they'd just let me get on with it. When things don't go according to plan, _this_ is the result! This!" He gesticulated wildly, vaguely aware that he was ranting and probably freaking Potter out horrendously.

"This, sir?" Potter repeated dubiously.

"Yes, this!" Severus yelled. "Me! In your living room! In a world I know nothing about! I was happy! I was -- " oh hell, who was he even kidding? How clichéd could one get? "Oh, all right, not happy, then, but mark me -- I had _purpose_ in my world!"

"You're...a wizard," Potter said.

"Yes, you idiot boy, a wizard! Are you deaf as well as stupid?" Severus was seething. Really and truly seething. "And do not interrupt! I gave you one simple command! Not to interrupt me!"

"But...there must be some misunderstanding here. I mean. A _wizard_," Potter said again, wearing the horrified smile of one who has just encountered a proof refuting Newton's Law of Gravity.

"Stop saying that, you ignoramus!" Severus snarled.

Potter shook his head disbelievingly. "But, I mean, sir, you cannot possibly expect me to just take that at face value -- you yourself taught me -- "

But Severus had had enough. He whipped out his wand and pointed it straight at Potter's mouth. "_Silencio__!_" he roared and Potter fell silent -- deathly silent -- eyes bugging out of his head behind those rectangular frames. Potter opened his mouth as though to speak but no sound came out. His hands flew to his throat and those startlingly green eyes latched onto Severus' in desperation. Potter mouthed in horror, '_What did you do to me?_' and Severus felt a cruel grin split across his face.

"What I did to you, Mr. Potter, ought to be fairly obvious. I cast a Silencing Spell on you, because you were not following my instructions to keep quiet; since you simply could not control yourself -- " here Severus' smile turned even nastier, " -- I saw fit to do it for you."

'_Take it off!_' Potter was screaming silently. '_Stop it, I believe you, alright? Just take it off!_'

"Take it off?" Severus gasped, feigning a scandalised tone. "That's moving rather quickly, is it not, Mr. Potter? Why, it is only the first date! We haven't even _kissed_ yet! Do not let your schoolboy libido get the better of you, foolish_ child._"

A blush had broken across Potter's cheeks and his forehead was slightly damp with sweat. The boy looked anguished at Severus' cruel innuendo: so Severus was right -- the boy _was _in love with him! There was something glittering in his eyes -- tears, Severus thought with disgust -- and Severus was torn between wanting to end Potter's suffering and wanting to prolong it indefinitely, to kick the boy while he was down, viciously using every titbit of information he'd gathered from those letters and _make Potter pay for it. _

But Potter was looking at him now, with the same look he'd seen on Lily's face the fateful day he'd called her '_Mudblood_': disbelief and undeniable hatred. And somehow, it stung more now than it had even then. Let history repeat itself, Severus thought with a dry swallow. He felt his chest tighten and with a snarl and a simple flick of his wand he countered the spell. "You may cut the dramatics now, Potter. You have your voice back, though Merlin only knows why you'd want it, annoying as it is," he muttered under his breath to cover his discomfort. "Honestly, you sound like some tiny hysterical Pekinese dog. Always whinging. It's despicable."

But Potter wasn't whinging now; he wasn't even talking, and the silence was becoming oppressive. Severus felt himself growing anxious and he tried to squelch it immediately: anxiety, like fear, was an emotion that just wasn't conducive to problem solving and getting things sorted, so Severus tended not to feel it. At all. Ever. And yet, his anxiety was rising to a level that was as intolerable as the charged stillness in the living room, and so finally Severus burst out with, "Potter, say something!"

"Get out," the boy said quietly, so quietly even that Severus was not sure he'd completely reversed the Silencing Spell. But then when Severus did not immediately motion to leave, Potter's head snapped up and he locked eyes with Severus again and Severus did not need to use Legilimency to know that Potter would not be held responsible for his actions if Severus did not leave his house straight away.

Severus' better judgment told him to take his leave. _Now._ But Severus did not listen to his better judgment and instead tried to say, "Potter, I apologise -- I was out of line -- perhaps we can try again -- "

"Not if I kill you first," Potter said in that same horrible, quiet voice that made Severus shudder.

"Don't be foolish, Potter," Severus replied, but with some trepidation, "you'll be arrested for murder."

"I'll say it's self-defense," Potter said sweetly. "An intruder broke in. _Oh, officer, really, he gave me such a fright! He tackled me and I just didn't stop to think -- I pulled the trigger!_"

"You own a gun?" Severus asked faintly. "Why in Merlin's name do you own a gun?"

Potter sneered worthy of Severus and ignored the question. "Oh, but it does sound convincing enough, doesn't it? I remember you told me I have the perfect doe eyes for master manipulation, and all I'd have to do is bat my eyelashes and everyone around me falls into shit." He paused. "But, oh yeah, that _wasn't _you, was it? That was _my_ Severus. And you are not him. No, you aren't him at all. I don't know who you are, but you are vicious and despicable and cruel, and you _disgust_ me."

Severus' breath caught. "Potter, don't you think we're being a little hasty -- "

"No, _we _are not being anything. _You _are getting out. Now." Severus didn't move. Potter gritted his teeth. "_Get out_."

"We have not talked this over -- I have yet to give you a proper explanation -- "

"You've given me plenty. You've given me the proof I needed to abandon my flawed theory about the reality of magic; and more importantly, my flawed theory about you. Now I am beginning again with a new hypothesis."

At Severus' look of confusion, Potter's sneer intensified. "What? Puzzled already? It's the bloody scientific method, Snape. When you get proof disproving one theory, you abandon it and start anew. Or do you not have such a method in...what was it...oh, yes..._Potions?_ Get out before I use you in a demonstration for our next momentum lab, Potions Master." He spat Severus' title like an insult, and Severus was actually quite impressed that the calm boy from earlier was able to put such venom into a simple epithet.

"You probably don't know this," Potter continued in a deceptively matter-of-fact tone, "but we're working on collisions right now -- I wonder what the resultant vector force would be if an 800 kilogram car going 100 km/hour hits you while walking down the street at a brisk 6 km/hour." He leaned in. Severus managed through sheer force of will not to take a step back. "Of course, there would be some conversions to deal with, hours to seconds and all that, but simple mathematics will take care of that minute detail. Think I could get the kids to just draw a vector diagram, or should we go all out and set it up for real? I think they could really learn from seeing it live. Don't you agree, sir?"

"Potter, you are upset, you are not thinking clearly -- "

"And you are not the man I knew. Get the fuck out of my house," Potter said forcefully, and Severus fled.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

A/N: There's another done. As stated at the top of the chapter with that horrific metaphor about the Astroturf green, there are several things I meant to address and it seemed the pages just got away from me. I thought I had to end it here before I exceeded the eight-page-limit I place on chapters for multi-chaptered stories. Ergo, the issues of where Other Severus was blasted to -- and the _real_ talk about magic...and Harry's childhood...and Severus' life...ugh so much! -- must wait until next time.

I'm shocked by how many people added this to alert or favourites. Not in the self-deprecating 'but-I-thought-this-story-was-shit-OMG!-compliments-plz!' way, just in the 'wow-I-guess-people-expect-good-things-from-this-so-I-should-probably-not-cock-it-up' way. So...I'll try my damnedest not to disappoint. Thank you so much to my lovely reviewers. I try to respond to all signed reviews -- if I forgot you, I'm really sorry; just tell me and I'll rectify it!


	3. Part III

**Summary:** AU. Instead of dying, Severus' soul is sent to a place he thought impossible - into the body of himself in another world. It's a world free of Dark Lords and debts to Dumbledore, but it bears a catch: no magic. SSHP slash.  
**Rating:** PG-15  
**Pairing:** SS/HP (main); mentions of past SS/LE, HP/GW, and JP/LE; brief mentions of unrequited HP/DM  
**Warnings:** swearing, slash, non-magic, brief mention of past abuse  
**Disclaimer:** Still not with the owning.  
**Author's note:** Back with a vengeance and beginning to feel like there is no way I can cover everything I mean to in only four parts. Five might not even be enough. And that business about under 20,000 words? Well, we'll see, but I just seem to write and write, so…who knows. But I'll do what I can, and I'll stop being so damn loquacious. Because I want to end this soon; I feel very little else needs to be said. After this chapter the pace will be picking up. The last thing I want to do is keep this going for longer than is necessary and then just end up jumping the shark in Part VIII or something like that. Thanks again to everyone who reviewed…you all make my day.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

_A Lesson in Patience_

Part III

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

Severus took a week of sick leave, which was only prudent when one did not know the subjects he was meant to teach. And Severus was nothing if not prudent. _Well_, he thought, musing on his cock-up of a dinner date with Potter, _most of the time_. Other times he was, admittedly, an arsehole.

Potter was no doubt immensely relieved that Severus had begged off for the week, but it nevertheless caused quite a stir among his students. Much like Severus in the Wizarding World, the Professor Severus Snape of the Muggle World did not take sick leave. Ever. It was sort of like Severus rambling, or Severus being anxious: it was something that just was not done.

His students were aghast. Rumours flew with astonishing rapidity and ferocity -- everything from the notion that Severus was dying of some rare tropical disease to the idea that he'd been kidnapped at gunpoint. Severus only knew any of this because he'd finally figured out how to work that blasted box in his study -- the one with the screen and the long board of letters and numbers and all the wires and the constant inquiries flashing across his screen telling him that _his resolution wasn't optimal and would he like to go to Control Options and revise it_? -- and get onto the...interweb, was it?...and check his electronic mail.

In his inbox were countless messages from both colleagues and students alike, all asking essentially the same thing in more flowery language: 'where in the bloody hell did you _go_?'

Severus ignored the messages, mostly because he didn't know these people and certainly did not know how he was to respond. What sort of persona had Other Severus portrayed? What did these people expect him to say or do?

And then there was the matter of the computer itself. The box was frightening to say the least, and not just because although Severus knew it ran on electricity it seemed to work like magic. Flawed magic. The thrice-damned thing kept copping out on him. And Severus did not know any of his passwords. It took painstaking hours of ransacking the study, hoping against hope that he'd written them down somewhere. He had, and for once Severus thanked his Doppelganger's apparent lack of discretion in the matter of recording personal information.

He spent copious hours poring over the volumes in his study, as well, trying to get some grasp -- however tenuous -- on Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Biochemistry and Psychopharmacology. It was really too much. He tried to use a Retaining Charm here and there, in hopes that he could magically infuse himself with knowledge he'd only begun examining seventy-two hours prior. But even a Level VII Intensity Retaining Charm was no match for the plethora of knowledge he was meant to have; it overflowed and snapped like a twig.

And when he tried to force the memories of what he'd read behind his Occlumency Shield so as to access them later, he found them weakening and decaying the second he pulled them once again to the forefront. By Friday, he knew it was time to pay a visit to Harry Potter.

Each Physics class was split into three tracks: general, semi-advanced, and accelerated. Potter taught all three, Severus knew from the time-table he had saved in his 'School Files' folder on his desktop. Usually, however, he had some help from Severus; the two of them were on constant rotation, and one week Potter might take general and semi-advanced while Severus took accelerated but then the next week Severus had both semi-advanced and accelerated so that Potter could assist with the more mundane tasks: reorganising the labs, revising the curriculum, grading lab reports, and tutoring students on the general track who were facing difficulties in the course.

Upon realising all this, Severus began to feel something he hadn't in years: guilt. Though taking the week off had been the only thing to do, he'd left Potter with all three tracks for each of the seven year courses as well as all of the other less glorified business to take care of.

Severus supposed his other courses had been cancelled, as Potter could not teach Chemistry without destroying the lab, and Biology, Biochemistry, and Psychopharmacology were very much out of the boy's league. But still -- Potter had probably been pulling ten-hour days at the school and twenty-hour days in general just to get through all of it.

So it was with an unsettled feeling in his stomach that Severus showed up in the Physics lab at half-three on Friday afternoon. Potter was working one-on-one with a girl in pigtails -- a third year, by the look of it -- on a circular motion problem. She was listening raptly, almost to the point of mesmerisation, and she looked startled when Potter said kindly, "You get it? Here, why don't you try this one on your own and I'll give it a look when you've finished?"

She nodded as though Potter's suggestion was the most brilliant idea that she'd ever heard.

Merlin, Severus thought with disgust. Thirteen-year-old student crushes were really the worst sort of crushes. He preferred to think of students as asexual creatures without desires, and he detested when they refuted that, inadvertently or otherwise.

Potter left her to it and walked over to Severus, a tight and angry expression on his face. "What are you doing here, Professor?" he asked in a polite tone that belied his fury. "I thought you were still ill in bed."

"I seem to have made a full recovery," Severus said stiffly, pointedly ignoring Potter's unmistakeable mutter of 'most unfortunately.' "I figured I would pay you a visit and see how you were holding down the fort in my absence."

"Oh, things are grand, sir," Potter said pleasantly. "Simply grand."

"No problems, I trust?"

"Nothing for you to be worried about."

"Mr. Potter," Severus said with a sigh, tiring of the back-and-forth, "I did not come here for a battle of wills and thinly-veiled resentment." Severus noticed then that the third-year was looking over at them curiously. "Perhaps we could move this discussion to a more private setting?"

"All I can offer you is the corridor, sir," Potter said frankly. "I'm not leaving a tutoring session for you."

No, Severus supposed Potter wouldn't. He frowned. "The corridor. Are there students lingering about out there?"

"It's after 3 p.m., so I doubt it. Most likely we shan't be bothered."

"Very well, then," Severus said, "the corridor it is."

"Of course." Potter glanced back at the girl and said, "Ashley, I will be right back; I just have to talk to Professor Snape about some coursework."

Outside of the classroom, Severus looked at him incredulously. "You call your students by their first names?"

"Our students, technically; we both teach them," Potter corrected, "And yes, I do."

"That is sexual harassment claim waiting to happen," Severus hissed.

"Don't be so melodramatic. I've found students respond better to the use of first names over surnames. It's more familiar," Potter replied.

"It is inappropriate," Severus said.

"This cannot possibly be what you came to talk to me about," Potter said with a sigh.

Severus took a deep breath and shook his head. "No, it is not. I came to apologise, yet again -- "

Potter muttered, "Your apologies must not be worth much, sir, seeing as you dole them out as carelessly as sweets at a Halloween Feast."

Severus gritted his teeth; it would not do to strangle his T.A. with a student just inside the lab. And besides, if he killed Potter, Hogwarts would be down _both_ its Sciences Professors, and then where would they be? "Nevertheless," he ground out, "they are most certainly warranted. And so, I extend this one to you." Deep breath. "I apologise, Mr. Potter, for my behaviour last week. It was undignified and most uncalled for."

Potter's hard glare softened a fraction as he said in response, "Yes. Not to mention utterly over the top." He sighed. "Then again, I did threaten to kill you, so, really, I suppose we're even on that point..."

"Quite. But what a man does in his own house is far more forgivable than what he does in a guest's." Severus examined his fingernails for lack of anything better to do. Then he looked up. "Do your light-hearted banter and threats on my person mean you accept the apology? I do not see that gun you spoke of anywhere."

"Don't be silly, sir," Potter said with a smirk, "I wouldn't bring the gun to school."

"No, I do not suppose you would." Severus paused. "Is there really a gun?"

Potter's face was unreadable again. "Do you really want me to answer that question, sir? Or are you only asking so that you can assure the police, later on, that you dutifully asked but I denied its existence, thereby keeping you ignorant until it was too late?"

Severus felt something uncoil itself hotly in his stomach. He cleared his throat. "So there is a gun," he hazarded. "Merlin, Potter, _why_?"

"Protection," Potter replied with a shrug.

"Protection from what?" Severus asked, admittedly a tad snidely. "We live in a decent enough neighbourhood."

Potter gave a rather elegant shrug. "I dunno, sir. I've had it for a long time now, since long before I moved here." He paused. "And again I say, this cannot possibly be what you came here to talk to me about..."

Severus sighed. "No," he murmured. "I suppose not." So how best to say this? "Potter...I..." Severus gritted his teeth. "I...know nothing about..."

"...anything, sir?" Potter finished snarkily, and Severus had to restrain his urge to throttle the brat.

"No!" Severus said with a snarl, but forced himself to calm down -- they'd only just made up; it would not do to get into yet another row only minutes after repairing the relationship. "No. I know nothing about...the subjects I am to teach. As such...Potter, I require...your..._assistance._"

Oh, that loathsome word again. Aid; assistance; support; they were all despicable, because they were all more flowery ways of saying, 'Help me,' and Severus Snape did not ask for help.

Then again, Severus Snape had not done a lot of things before last week. Rambling; being nervous; apologising to someone who wasn't Lily or the Headmaster; cooking for himself; taking time off; asking for help...Yes. Before meeting this cheeky, twenty-two-year-old assistant teacher physics genius extraordinaire, Severus had been in control. Before last week, Severus had been a Potions Master; a Potions Master about to die via Giant Snake Bite, but a Potions Master nonetheless. Now he was just a man with a magic wand, a tongue-in-cheek teaching assistant, and a life that was quickly unravelling at the seams.

Judging by the look of Potter, however, it was no different for him. Perhaps behind the polite voice and cheeky, half-hearted threats the bespectacled young man was just as confused as Severus was? Too much had changed, and much too quickly at that.

Why did Severus care? Had Potter changed him in this way as well? Perhaps it was time to test the waters yet again, and Potter seemed the overly forgiving type. Especially if the infuriating young man was in love with him. Severus cleared his throat, affecting his most neutral of expressions. "I would like to try that dinner meeting again," he said indifferently, "perhaps, this time, even without my physical assault on your person and your subsequent verbal assaults on my life."

Potter blinked before the smallest of smiles crossed his face. "Very well," he said cordially. "My place tonight. I assume you can find your own way home?"

"Yes, of course," Severus said, annoyed. "What do you think I am, an incompetent first-year?"

Potter gave another shrug and said, "No one here doubts your competence except for you, sir. See you at 8:30."

He slipped back inside to help _Ashley_ (honestly, what was the boy doing calling the girl by her first name? This was a lawsuit masquerading as a tutoring session!) with her disturbingly morbid problem about "_a 30kg child on a tilt-a-whirl spinning at a velocity of 10 m/s_," until the child accidently lets go at "_a point situated at an angle of 63-degrees below the horizontal_" and flies off -- so, "_in which direction will the child fly and what will his final velocity be?_"

Severus wrinkled his nose; if all of Physics was this ludicrous, he was certainly glad he hadn't been born a Muggle.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

"Honestly, sir," Potter said, letting Severus through the doorway and into the corridor, "are you hoping to catch me unawares by dropping by a quarter-hour early every time I invite you?"

Severus frowned to cover his discomfort at the impending admission: "Actually, Potter," he said swiftly, "I haven't a clock."

Potter was silent for a moment before replying hesitantly, "Actually, sir, you...do."

Severus was about to return with something cutting about how Potter should respect his betters and oh, how Severus longed for a time when children were seen but not heard, when he remembered that Potter was not a child. And then he realised the implication in Potter's sentence.

He demanded, "You've been in my _house_?!"

"Yes, but with your permission!" Potter shook his head in disbelief. "God, but you are paranoid! Really, sir, you act as though I broke in one night while you were asleep just to poke about looking for clocks!"

"I was thinking more along the lines of your breaking in whilst I was out," Severus said grimly. "I would almost take more comfort in the idea of you lurking in my house as I slept -- then your blundering noise would rouse me and I could come downstairs and deal with you accordingly."

But Potter seemed unperturbed by the threat of being '_dealt with_.' "I do not lurk," he said with a smirk. "I pad delicately, like a leopard."

Severus was suddenly struck with a terrifying image of Potter's face superimposed on a leopard's body; the Potter-Leopard was smirking and saying something about running away from Severus' threats; "_What is my final velocity, and in which direction will I run_?"

Oh dear. Severus shook his head to clear it.

"The clock is in your kitchen, by the by," Potter said conversationally. "It's in the shape of a cat."

"You must be joking," Severus said with disgust.

"I assure you, I am not; it has a tail that swishes back and forth like a pendulum, and its eyes are huge and green and they dart from side to side in time with but in the opposite direction of the tail. It's striped -- black and white. Like a zebra. I thought you ought to know." Potter paused. "If you don't mind me asking, sir, how is it that you've been telling time without a clock, in addition to not carrying a watch or pocket watch?"

Severus frowned, still thinking about the monstrous clock that allegedly hung above his refrigerator. He wondered if anyone would mind if he took a hatchet to the thing. "There is a charm," he said finally, "that one can cast if he or she wishes to check the time but no apparent clock is available."

He pulled out his wand and Potter flinched. Severus frowned; had he really shaken Potter up that badly? It wasn't as though he'd cast the Cruciatus on the brat. But then again, one's first encounter with magic probably ought not to be as vindictive as Severus had made it. Potter's blatant display of weakness still annoyed him, though. Immensely. "Relax, Potter. Do not be so twitchy. I am merely going to demonstrate how wizards check the time; I am not about to turn you into something nasty."

Or something four-footed and pad-pawed. Like a leopard.

Severus gave his wand a flick. "_Tempus_," he murmured, and in midair the numbers '20:25' appeared in bright blue. Severus dispelled them with another wave of his wand.

Potter, apparently having recovered from his temporary shock, said curiously, "Military time...so that you don't have to differentiate between day and night, I suppose? But I should think it would be obvious - half-eight at night looks remarkably different from half-eight in the morning."

Severus inclined his head a fraction. "Very true. However, at certain times of year and certain times of day, it may not be quite so obvious. Sunrise and sunset look very similar to one who is not particularly observant -- or who has lost a few hours here or there for one reason or another -- and during the wintertime, when night falls earlier and morning breaks later, half-past-six in the A.M. may look remarkably similar to its evening counterpart."

Potter nodded, gesturing to Severus that he should sit down in the living room. Potter set about making them some tea, and silence befell them for a long moment.

And then they heard it: the first clash of thunder.

"Oh no; this always seems to happen at this time of year; unfortunately, the power lines are shit here so who knows how long the lights will last," Potter muttered, hurrying to finish the tea before the heavens opened up and sheets of rain poured down on the tiny house. The lights flickered and died, and Potter swore softly under his breath. "I should get a torch," he said, abandoning the tea.

"No, do not bother," Severus said. "Allow me. _Lumos__._"

The kitchen and living room ignited with light from the wand and in its bright glow Severus could see that Potter had gone very still. It was a painstakingly long moment of silence before the young man said quietly, "I don't like magic very much, sir."

Severus felt a hot spark of annoyance at that, but quelled it as he remembered that he was here for a purpose, and it was not to get into another shouting match with Lily Potter's son. Instead he settled on saying, "Why is that, Mr. Potter?"

Apparently Severus had not been able to remove all of the gruffness from his tone, because Potter locked down and his face became blank. Severus had begun noticing a pattern over his past few encounters with the young man: Potter was polite and cordial, and did not control his facial expressions much except to keep them as benign and pleasant as possible. Until he was provoked, that was. When Potter was provoked, he went one of three ways: a) smirking, b) furious sneers that made even Severus nervous, and c) the method he was employing now -- complete lockdown. Severus despised that expression, because Potter was particularly difficult to get to when he shut off like that. And while Severus wasn't a fan of Potter making threats on his life, he was not a fan of a Potter he could not provoke, either. That sucked the fun out of everything.

Potter gave another of his elegant shrugs and said indifferently, "It just seems...I dunno...too easy."

"Easy?" Severus repeated sharply. He was taken aback; he'd expected the young man to say, 'I just don't think it's natural,' or 'The whole business scares me,' or some idiocy like that. But 'too easy?' What on earth was this?

"Well...yes." Potter brought over the tea and handed Severus a cuppa. "Like you aren't really solving anything. You're just putting a plaster over it for a while."

Severus frowned. "I do not follow," he said curtly.

Potter sighed. "It's just...I assume there are spells for virtually everything, yes?"

"Magic is very thorough," Severus said simply.

Potter nodded, taking a sip of his tea. "And I assume it's not just spellwork, either. There must be more to it, different components that when combined in just the right way make up the whole of Magic."

Severus narrowed his eyes, still unsure of where Potter was leading him. Which angered him, because Severus Snape was never unsure; he was always one step ahead of the game. Always. "There are other branches of Magic, yes," he said.

"And, really," Potter continued in a deceptively conversational tone, "I suppose it's a lot like my world, isn't it. I mean, we have medicines and chemistry and physics and mathematics and humanities and all that, so...you must have your versions as well."

"Potter, where is this going?" Severus snapped.

"All I'm saying, sir," Potter said calmly, "is that you lot have found a way to progress beyond us, haven't you. And in all the same arenas, too."

_Ah_. So that was what Potter was getting at. "Just because we have found more efficient methods of completing tasks does not mean we do not face set-backs of our own, Potter," Severus said curtly. "You make it sound as though we wave our wands and all of our problems disappear. I can assure you from personal experience that that simply is not true. Our world is just like yours -- there is suffering and evil and heartache. Magic cannot fix everything. It even seems to create more problems a great deal of the time. By introducing more power -- as well as faster, easier ways of acquiring it -- we create a perfect breeding ground for corruption and destruction. Madness. Torture beyond anything any Muggle -- that is to say, someone like you -- could ever think possible."

Potter leaned forward. "But that's just it, Professor," he said softly. "Magic cannot fix everything. You're looking to it for solutions you just won't find unless you make them yourself. There are so many things we learn as kids -- if there's a problem, we get it sorted ourselves; if we're drowning, what better time is there to learn to swim? We pull ourselves out of it. These magical...solutions! They're just quick fixes that don't actually treat the problem. It's like I said: just a plaster. A bandage on your society's problems."

"That is a wide-sweeping judgment," Severus said snidely. "Expound upon that comment."

Potter smiled, looking at his chipped mug. "By simplifying the little things, like keeping yourself dry with Water Repelling Charms or casting a spell to light a torch when the lights have gone out in a storm -- some silly rubbish like that -- you can take comfort in those smaller things and ignore the bigger issues in your lives. Or even worse, you might begin to take those things for granted...that your cloak will never get wet again, and you'll always have that torch no matter what."

He looked up at Severus once again, an unreadable expression on his face. "And you probably pity us -- Muggers, did you call us? Muggles? -- because we can't do what you do. But it's good, in a way: it forces us to try harder to progress, to rise up to meet you. And, more importantly, it forces us to accept the little things we can't change. Like getting wet, for example, or the lekky failing during a storm. For us, there is no 'quick-fix charm' so it's an inconvenience we learn to live with. We change the things we can and accept those we cannot, and just keep faith that the less than pleasant parts of our lives will pass. And they will. Things cannot possibly stay the same forever; the universe wasn't built to exist like that."

Potter placed the cup down on the table, never breaking eye contact, and said shyly, "_We_ weren't built to exist like that."

Suddenly Severus was aware of how close there were sitting. He swallowed sharply, put his tea down, and twisted pointedly away. There was a tick more silence before Severus finally had the presence of mind to say, haughtily, "Then I suppose you want me to put this light out?"

Potter shrugged. "I would, but I wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable; if it gives you comfort to have it lit, then you should have it lit."

Severus snorted. "This is your house, Potter," he said sarcastically, "and as such what gives me comfort is really of little importance. Enforce some damn rules, gypsy boy."

Potter snorted. "_Gypsy boy_?" he repeated.

"Yes. Gypsy boy. I stand by it." Severus frowned again. This playful banter was too much like his with Lily when they were young; it was unsettling, to say the least. "You are all over the place -- too calm, then too excited -- no hard rules -- suggesting that we lounge about in the dark and admire the thunderstorm -- and don't even get me started on the fact that I've never seen you eat meat -- "

Potter considered this. "I'm sure there are some carnivorous gypsies out there, sir," he said logically.

"There are none," Severus replied.

"You've met every single gypsy in the entire world?" Potter looked sceptical.

"Yes. Every single one."

Potter sighed. "You know sir," he said coyly, "Gypsies are a real people. They've a science and a doctrine and a method to their lifestyle, and I doubt they'd take very kindly to your gross generalisations about their existence..." Another graceful shrug. "You should respect other cultures...other beliefs. You shouldn't knock something until you've tried it?"

"Manipulative beast!" Severus bit out, but there was not nearly enough heat in it. There was another moment of tense silence before Severus swore colourfully and _Nox_'d his wandlight. Merlin help him! The blasted young man made him do things he never would have otherwise! If not for the fact that Severus required the man's help, he would have been out of that house faster than he could say 'Disapparate.' Even in the dark, Severus could tell the infuriating man was grinning.

"Thanks, sir," Potter said, and he sounded like he meant it.

"Do not mention it, Potter," Severus spat. "No. I am serious. Do not mention it to anyone, ever again."

Severus sensed Potter's grin widen. "Sir, no one would believe me if I tried," he replied, and Severus growled incomprehensibly in response. "You know, sir, it really is better this way," Potter added.

"How could it possibly be better?" Severus snapped. "And do not give me any of your cock-and-bull fantasies either. I am not a fan of intercourse with men, and I have no fantasies of ravishing you on this couch."

There was another bout of silence and Severus almost thought he'd hurt Potter's feelings until the younger man said dismissively, "No, no, nothing like that. It's better because -- well, look outside the next time the lightning hits. There's something perfect about it, what with the rain and the harsh movement of the branches in the wind -- it's just beautiful, in a way that a torch would ruin." He gestured to the window where they could see the storm raging outside. Lightning exploded in the sky like massive electrical explosions; deafening claps of thunder followed in their wake; and outside, the large trees that had looked so serene and steady when Severus had first arrived were being thrown back and forth in the tumultuous gusts of wind.

"I see nothing pleasant in this view," Severus said coldly.

"I know you're lying, sir."

And he was, because Potter was right: there was something beautiful about the way everything was being torn about, and how Severus could only see it when the lightning struck. When there was no lightning, everything else was submerged in a suffocating, inky blackness.

Severus merely grunted in reply.

"So...if you're here," Potter said thoughtfully, "where's my Severus Snape?"

Severus could not help: he snorted. "_Your_ Severus Snape, Potter? Does the man know he belongs to you?"

"Not to...me...exactly..." Potter sounded very uncomfortable; his fiddling intensified. "But to my world, certainly. I'm just curious, is all. If you're here, where is he?"

Severus sighed. "Well, Potter," he said quietly, "usually how these things go is the way of a complete switch. So one may rightfully presume that if I am here in his body, he is likely in mine back in the Wizarding World."

"Do you think he's happy there?" Potter asked.

"Merlin, but you ask a lot of personal questions; one would think you were in love with the man."

Potter ignored that. "Come on, sir."

Severus relented. "Truth be told, Potter," he replied swiftly, "I do not think your beloved Professor is feeling much of anything there -- I should doubt very much that he is feeling happy, or sad, or tired, or any of the emotions one usually encounters in the day to day...In all honestly, I would wager that your Severus Snape is dead."

"_Dead_?" Potter yelped.

"Yes, and calm down," Severus muttered. "There is no need for such excitement. It's wearing."

Potter took a deep breath and asked more calmly, "What do you mean 'dead,' sir?"

"Exactly what I say. Dead. Deceased. Six feet under. Popped his clogs. Kicked the pail. Met his mak-- "

"Alright!" Potter said loudly. "I get it. But how? Were you meant to die in your world?"

"I was," Severus returned in a tone that stated he would give no more information.

There was more silence, broken only by the claps of thunder outside. This silence thing seemed to be happening a lot tonight. Finally Potter said ironically, "It's just as well, really. If he hadn't died in your world, he would have ended up working himself to death here."

Severus turned to look at him, making out the young man's silhouette. "You are joking," he said unquestioningly.

Potter shrugged. "Not really...He was always working. Non-stop. I know I put in a lot of hours every week, but he...he was something else entirely. All those classes. All that researching rubbish. The bureaucracy he had to wade through. He barely ever slept, and I'm sure the stress was damn-near killing him." A sigh. "All I'm saying is that if it isn't one thing, it's always another."

"You cannot possibly be so flip about the death of the man you -- " _loved, _Severus finished silently, but even while he didn't say it they both heard it anyway, and the uncomfortable silence fell again.

Potter made a noise that was something between a snort and an annoyed grunt. "I'm not, really. Flip, that is. I would never treat his death like that...as though I didn't care. Because I do," he said. "It's just...in some ways it's a relief to have him gone."

That made it sound so...melodramatic. So needlessly tragic, Severus mused, like something out of _Romeo and Juliet_. Severus felt a single eyebrow rise, oblivious to the fact that Potter could not see his sardonic expression. Muggle Severus Snape had quite obviously loved Potter back. And yet, Potter probably had no idea. He probably did not know about the locked drawer in the study, filled-to-bursting with his letters from all four years of university. Potter probably just assumed that Muggle Snape did not love him and never would.

Well, if that was the assumption they were going on, Severus would play along. He narrowed his eyes. "Why did you return to teach, caring for him so and knowing he would never return those feelings?"

"Sir," Potter said, shifting slight on the couch so as to face Severus better, even though they could not see one another, "Did you ever love someone really deeply -- such that you were madly, impossibly, tongue-tied in love -- and nothing and no one could take that away from you? And it didn't really matter that they'd never return your feelings, because just being beside them was worth more to you than anything at all...even self-preservation?"

Severus felt his throat go dry. "Yes," he said harshly, but his voice cracked on the word, rather ruining the effect.

"There's your answer then," Potter said softly, and he settled against the couch cushions, long lithe limbs tucked into himself like a child's. Severus wanted to destroy him then, this beautiful young man with Lily's eyes and Lily's smile and Lily's mannerisms...this peculiar man who was obviously brilliant but remained humble...who looked hopelessly delicate but had insight Severus himself did not possess. Potter had unsettled him so completely in such a short amount of time. Severus wanted to kill Potter for making him feel things he'd never felt before.

However, Severus clenched his fists until the feeling passed. And it did.

The silence that followed Potter's reply was more comfortable than the others that had preceded it. The tension melted away and Potter finally said, quietly, "You came here seeking 'assistance,' you said, but you never told me what with."

"We face a dilemma; you must have realised, Potter," Severus murmured. "I cannot possibly teach anymore..."

In the flash of lightning that lit up the room, Severus saw the boy quirk a smile. "I'd reckoned so, yeah," he replied. "But I just figured you'd take the semester off and I'd teach Physics for you, and we'd have Headmaster Dumbledore hire some people to cover your Chem, Bio, Biochem, and Psychopharmacology classes until you learned your stuff."

Severus snorted. "Don't be stupid, Potter. It takes years to master those subjects, even with Pensieves and Concentration Potions, and Retaining Charms and Occlumency. How am I to do this?"

The next burst of lightning saw Potter wrinkling his nose. "Well," the young man said reasonably, "I don't know what any of that Magic mumbo-jumbo you just spat at me is, but I will say this: no one ever said you had to be perfect about it. You just have to be solid enough so that you know more than the students you're meant to teach."

"Potter," Severus said, exasperated, "there is little point to teaching something if you cannot excel at it. You must know your subject completely and thoroughly. Inside and out. A teacher who does not know his subject is not teaching -- he is merely pontificating. I do not wish to pontificate, Potter, I wish to teach. If I do not know my subject, I shall not teach it. I should rather save myself the effort and embarrassment and simply refrain from disrespecting the art form so."

Potter was smirking again; Severus could just _tell_. "But sir, you will excel, because you cannot stand the idea of letting yourself fail. You just won't allow it to happen. Severus Snape does not fail."

But that argument was null and void, really, because Severus was beginning to wonder just what Severus Snape did and did not do anymore -- all his rules had gone out the window. He was sitting on the couch with Harry Potter, for Merlin's sake! In the dark in the middle of a thunderstorm! Talking about..._feelings._ How had this happened?

Potter was still talking. "And besides," he said, smirking, "I'm a great teacher. You said so yourself."

"I said no such thing; that was not me, remember?" Severus snapped. "And what is this business about you teaching me? I refuse to be taught like one of your asinine, love-struck third-year girls!"

Potter laughed. "There is nothing wrong with asinine, love-struck third-years, and there's nothing wrong with my teaching style either. Now you're just being bull-headed. "

"And you are being delusional," Severus sneered. "Potter, I swear to you, this will not work! I will not be taught. I refuse to be taught by you!"

"Oh, ye of little faith. I think it would be good for you, you know," Potter said. "No, really, I do! I've only known you a week now, but that's long enough for me to gather that you seem awfully set in your ways. My Severus was too." He laughed again. "But then again, so was I."

"Potter," Severus said again, teeth clenched, "_this will not work_. This _cannot_ work. I do not know what philosophical drivel you are spouting about how you and _your Severus_ 'taught' each other or 'expanded one another's minds' or whatever bollocks you seem to be preaching. Merlin, preserve me!" Severus sighed harshly. "For the last time, I am not _your Severus_ and I never will be!"

"I know." Potter's body shifted slightly, and when the next burst of lightning struck Severus could see the man had repositioned himself so that he was looking at Severus head-on, a determined look on his handsome features. "Please, Professor," he declared finally, "Let's do this. My Severus taught me that it's always worth it to test the hypothesis out even if it seems implausible or even downright crazy; if there's even the slightest chance that it might prove true, it's worth it to test. I know, I know, you're not my Severus, but you do work with science, right? So you know all about hypotheses and predictions and testing long-standing theories, just to make sure some new piece of data doesn't knock them out of the air. So test this with me. Let's give it a try. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I really don't think I am. I think you can grasp all of this -- "

"Without the use of magic? Potter," Severus snapped, "that so exceeds _'impossible'_ that it has gone all the way around to '_possible,_' ripped its way through '_possible_' and kept on going at full-pelt only to come full circle and end up at '_impossible_' again!"

Potter looked bemused. "You are needlessly long-winded, sir," he said with a shake of his head. "And needlessly pessimistic, as well. I mean, really, come on, now. You're Severus Snape. If anyone can do this it's you."

"What is with this revolting display of support? You Gryffindors are always having unfortunate and most deplorable flights of fancy," Severus said harshly.

Potter laughed. "I wasn't a Gryffindor," he said ironically. "I was a Slytherin, sir."

Severus clenched his fists. The Houses must have been different here too, if they'd allowed Potter into Slytherin... How did they even perform the Sorting, anyways? A bloody computer-generated personality test? An online quiz? No matter; Potter's Sorting was not truly important at this moment; what was important was the fact that Potter was planning to teach him subjects that, before last week, Severus had never heard of. This had really gone on long enough. Severus needed to set Potter straight. Now.

"I do not care what you were," he seethed, "because what you currently _are_ is much worse: you are blinded by affection you feel for a man who's no longer living and are projecting your feelings for him onto me."

Potter's face fell slightly, but only slightly, and only for a fraction of a second. He licked his lips. "Sir," he said simply, leaning forward, "that may be so. I will not deny that is a possibility. And it's one we can test as well. But the only way for us to test it is for me to get to know you better..." Potter trailed off, but Severus could still hear the wheels turning in his head. This act of innocence and determination-worthy-of-a-Gryffindor was just that: an act. Oh no, Potter knew exactly what he was doing now. Severus' lip curled: Potter was going in for the kill.

Potter leant in even closer. "But...I just know you can do this." A little closer. "And I want _you_ to know it too. Please. Can we just try it?"

That was it! Enough of this foolishness! "Merlin, Potter, you will be the death of me!" he exploded. "I cannot abide such delusions of grandeur!"

But Potter was grinning again. "So, think of it as a lesson in _patience_, professor."

Severus narrowly -- _just narrowly_ -- resisted the urge to strangle him.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

A/N: I hope to get Part IV out in a few days; by the weekend at the absolute latest. You guys are amazing. Thank you for the encouragement! The reviews help me write faster (hint, hint!).


	4. Part IV

**Summary:** AU. Instead of dying, Severus' soul is sent to a place he thought impossible - into the body of himself in another world. It's a world free of Dark Lords and debts to Dumbledore, but it bears a catch: no magic. SSHP slash.  
**Rating:** PG-15  
**Pairing:** SS/HP (main); mentions of past SS/LE, HP/GW, and JP/LE; mentions of unrequited DM/HP  
**Warnings:** swearing, slash, non-magic, brief mention of past abuse  
**Disclaimer:** I only wish this universe belonged to me.

**Author's note: **A couple things --

1) I mention eating disorders in this. I try not to be too descriptive -- and it is a brief mention -- but it might be triggering for someone in recovery. As someone who is currently recovering from an eating disorder, I do know what it's like and I do know what it's about, so before I get a bunch of flames slagging me off for talking about anorexia, just know that I have been there, and I'm not trying to make a stereotype or a judgment out of anything.

2) I also mention abuse. Kind of graphically, though just as briefly.

3) The pace is much faster now! Yay fast pace. The only issue with that is I feel like I may have moved it too fast. Constructive criticism is absolutely welcome -- encouraged, even. I don't actively like this chapter much, but agonising over it won't get the thing finished so here you are. Hopefully it's not as disjointed and all over the place as I think it is.

4) I'm so sorry if there are spelling mistakes. I've been through it a bunch but I'm pretty tired so I'm likely to have missed a few. Or a lot.

On with the show!

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

_A Lesson in Patience_  
Part IV

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

Severus Snape was very displeased. He was very displeased indeed. In fact, one might even go so far as to say he was angry.

"Potter," he snapped, "This does not make any sense; the text mentions the Empirical Formula and then bounces right back to Molecular Formula, but does not explain either one -- let alone tell me how to use it!"

Potter looked up from his task of grading the seventh years' Quantum Physics problem sets and walked over to where Severus was seated. "May I see?" he asked, gesturing to the book.

Severus made a grunt that was halfway between 'By all means' and 'Get stuffed' and slid his chair back violently from the table. He walked over to Potter's cupboard and pulled out a glass, filling it with water from the tap. If he were being candid, Severus would have to admit he would have preferred some firewhiskey right about now.

"Alright, yes," Potter said, "this text is right shit. But here, why don't I just explain it?"

Severus sneered. "I do not trust your chemistry lectures half as far as I could throw you." He took a long calming drink of water and added, "you were terrible at Chemistry and you know it."

Potter smiled. "Only the practical bits, sir. The theoretical stuff I was ace at; you just had to keep me away from the actual chemicals themselves." He beckoned Severus over. "Come on, you've been whinging over this for a fortnight now. Is having a tutor really that dreadful a thing?"

"It is when the tutor is you, Potter," Severus muttered, but it sounded almost petulant, and Potter merely raised his eyebrows in response. Severus relented. "Oh fine. But if you set me back, I swear, Potter..."

"I won't set you back, Professor," Potter said sardonically. "Come on. Let's hammer this out before dinner."

Severus sat back down, trying to ignore the humiliating fact that he was currently being taught by one of his former students. Not only that, a former student he'd spent years hating.

"Okay," Potter said briskly, "it's like this -- " he grabbed a sheet of loose leaf and began writing as he spoke, " -- the Empirical Formula is the simplest ratio of atoms in a molecule; the Molecular Formula is the actual number of atoms in the molecule. For example," he leaned over and Severus caught a whiff of something that smelled curiously like burnt firewood, pine sap, and Irish Springs body soap all mixed into one; even more perplexing to Severus was the fact that the combination smelled rather pleasant.

"...take Glucose. The Empirical Formula is CH2O, right? But the molecular formula is C6H12O6. So, basically, the Empirical Formula is the simplest form possible: you would simply divide each sub-number by the highest common denominator -- six -- and you are left with CH2O. But take heed, though: because the Empirical Formula is so simple, there are molecules that may share a common Empirical Formula but have very different Molecular Formulas. Like acetic acid, for example, or Formaldehyde..."

Potter kept talking, but Severus tuned out. He watched Potter writing things down -- numbers, letters, formulas -- and frowned. Potter had very delicate wrists, he noticed.

Potter was looking at him expectantly. Severus supposed the young man had asked him a question.

"Come again?" Severus said, irritated.

"I said, do you want to try this one on your own?" He scribbled down _13.5 g Ca, 10.8 g O_, and _.675 g H_.

Severus sighed long-sufferingly and took the biro from Potter's outstretched hand. He looked at the numbers in front of him. In Potter's example, he'd scribbled out _13.5 g x 1 mol / 40.1 g_, paused for a second as he figured it out in his head, and wrote down _.337 mol Ca_. Severus marvelled that the man could work the math out so easily. It was not only impressive, it was...kind of upsetting as well.

Severus hated this. Being taught this way. And he did not possess the mathematical prowess to solve the numbers in his head the way Potter did. And that embarrassed him even further: he abhorred being shown up by James Potter's son.

Severus copied Potter's example and solved the problems for oxygen (_10.8 x 1 mol / 16.0g_) and hydrogen (_.675 x 1 mol / 1.0g_) and shoved the paper back at Potter moodily. Potter didn't even blink at his childish behaviour.

"Brilliant. And so you see our smallest value is for calcium -- .377 versus the other values of .675. So now we divide each one by .337, like so -- " he worked them out -- "and we're left with our answers: 1 mol Ca, 2 mol O, and 2 mol H."

He looked at Severus with a smile. "So, what do you think we do next?" he asked.

"Write the formula out," Severus bit out, feeling embarrassed and stupid.

"Yes, exactly. Our molecular formula becomes Ca1O2H2. But knowing what you know about simplification, how would we write it out instead?"

Severus gave it a bit of thought. "Ca(OH) 2?" he asked dubiously, and Potter grinned triumphantly.

"Yes!" He sounded way too excited. "Isn't chemistry fascinating?"

Severus glowered. "I have never been so enthralled with anything in my entire life," he said sarcastically.

"Do you want to start in on the Molecular Formula, or would you rather have some dinner and have the rest of the evening to yourself?"

"Humpf," Severus said tetchily, quelling the urge to strangle Potter again. "Potter," he said, "I do not think this will work."

Potter frowned. "I know you don't like being taught, Professor, but -- "

"No," Severus overrode him, "it is more than that. It is more than just a juvenile detestation of being told what to do, thought I admit -- " he sighed heavily, " -- I admit I suffer from such an affliction as well. But what is really hindering me right now is the knowledge that not only am I being told what to do, I am being told what to do by _you_ as well."

"What's so wrong with me?" Potter said with a sigh. "I know I'm younger than you, and your former student, and that's got to be rough, but if you ignore all of that and just focus on what I say -- "

Severus shook his head. "You do not understand," he said sharply.

Potter's expression blanked again. "Then...explain it to me."

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. "I do not like you, Potter."

Potter nodded slowly. "Yes, you've said. Your preference doesn't run to males. I know. And I don't plan on trying to shag you. So, what's the problem?"

"No, Potter. I mean, I truly do not like you." He looked at Potter straight-on. "As a person, I find you irritating and exasperating and downright impossible to abide."

Potter's lips twisted slightly; Severus knew that look: the young man was confused and annoyed. "Then why do you keep coming by, sir?" he asked.

Severus had been wondering the same thing. He'd been wondering the same thing for days now. Every time he saw Potter, spoke to Potter, even exchanged emails with Potter about something school-related, Severus found himself becoming more and more riled up. The desires to punch Potter, strangle him, shove him against a wall cruelly and walk away as the man stared after him, green eyes awash in hurt -- they were all growing stronger every time the two men crossed paths.

It was the little things, really: Potter's elegant shrugs, his longish hair, the way he seemed to wear those stupid Birkenstock sandals all the time regardless of the temperature outside. It was the way Potter carried himself, as well: much too confidently for someone so slim and young-looking. It was how bookish Potter was, and how he seemed to know everything about everything, even the subjects he was allegedly crap at. It was how Potter could solve complex maths equations in his head. It was how Potter smiled, too, and how he laughed, smirked, ran a hand through his hair distractedly. It was how Potter sat curled up in chairs, only to uncurl himself again -- a mass of lithe limbs and fluid motion -- as he stood up. It was how Potter debated things brilliantly and with a precision that matched Severus' flawlessly; it was how Potter could poke holes in any argument.

And most importantly, it was how Potter was just like Lily. Because the resemblance was maddening, and now Severus was _noticing_ Potter, and Severus did not like the idea of _noticing_ another bloke.

Severus said sharply, "I hated you in my world; you cannot possibly begin to fathom just how much I hated you. And now, to come here, and so suddenly become buddy-buddy with you..." He exhaled harshly. "Potter, there are some relationships that cannot be repaired. I fear that ours is one of them."

Potter shook his head. "What did he do to you?" he questioned.

"What?" Severus replied tiredly. "Who are you talking about?"

"The Harry Potter of your world. You really seem to hate him. Why?"

Severus' lip curled involuntarily at the thought of his world's Harry Potter. "Presumptuous brat. Always inserting himself into situations in which he did not belong. He was arrogant and reckless. Impulsive. Terrible temper. Refused to be taught. No respect for rules, boundaries, and other people's property."

Potter looked contemplative. "He sounds a trip...I imagine you fought a lot," he said.

"More times than I could possibly count; he was just so easily provoked! So _weak_," Severus snarled. "He wore his heart on his sleeve and I just -- " Severus took a breath. "He was a sorry excuse for Lily's son."

Potter sat down in the chair Severus had vacated only moments before, the thoughtful look still on his face. "And what about you, sir?" he said inquisitively. "Were you always as calm and patient with him as he was with you?"

"I treated him as well as he deser -- " Severus broke off as the gravity of Potter's words hit him. "Oh, you scheming bastard. You are going to suggest that I was no better than he!"

Potter raised his eyebrows. "No, I wouldn't take it to that extreme. I don't know the man, after all, so I can't pass judgments like that. Maybe he really is as bad as you say." He clasped his hands together in a knot and leaned his chin on them. "It's just...in all honesty, you're a trip yourself."

"What do you mean?" Severus hissed, stepping closer to the man.

Potter didn't even flinch. He just shot Severus a look. "I'm not going to lie: it took all my self-control not to deck you the first time we met." He thought a second. "And the time you cast a Silencing Spell on me and kicked me when I was down...and the time last week when you shouted at me and then stormed out of my house...and the time -- "

"You have made your point, Mr. Potter!" Severus snapped.

"Have I?" Potter asked, gazing up at Severus with an unfathomable expression on his face. "Maybe you hated the Harry of your world because he was too much like you -- he exemplified everything you hated in yourself. And now you can't stand being in my presence because I'm so different from him, so you have to finally face the things that you hate about yourself without projecting them onto someone else."

Severus shut the textbook and gathered his notes, seething. But Potter wasn't done.

"And what's even worse is the fact that you no longer feel justified in hating me, which terrifies you, because if you can't hate me then you might start to like me, and if you like me you might grow attached. And Severus Snape doesn't like attachment." Potter paused. "Have I left anything out?" he inquired innocently.

Severus did not even waste his breath on a snappy retort or curt comeback; he was out the door in seconds flat.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

A week passed. Then two.

Potter didn't call to apologise. Severus didn't call to explain.

Severus watched every morning over breakfast (black coffee and toast with the tiniest dollop of raspberry jam) as Potter pedalled past his house on that ridiculous bicycle. Severus wondered how he was still managing to ride back and forth from Hogwarts everyday when the temperature was rising and summer was fast approaching.

The weeks turned into a month, and Severus stopped watching the window. He looked into getting a job to occupy his time. The cafe in town was hiring, he noted, but he didn't have any serving experience...and he was forty-one years old. He quickly nixed that idea, if only for the sake of his pride.

He got himself into a schedule of sorts: he woke up, had breakfast, went for a walk into town, came back, studied for a few hours, had lunch, took a few hours for pleasure reading or writing, then studied some more until supper. Sometimes his "few hours for pleasure reading" were spent fooling around on the computer or going through the things in Other Severus' house.

He and Potter hadn't spoken for almost six weeks when Severus found the Folder.

He'd stumbled upon it quite accidentally, really; how was he to know that Muggle Severus kept all the Slytherin Student Dossiers at home with him? He found them to be well-organised by year, so finding Potter's folder within the _'Slytherins, Class of '98'_ file was no trouble at all. It practically fell open in his hands.

At least, that was Severus' story and he was sticking to it.

He looked at the official documents in Potter's dossier -- medical records from both his Primary School and from Madam Pomfrey at Hogwarts...inserts from the Hogwarts grief counsellor...permission slips from Vernon Dursley to let the boy attend Hogsmeade Village. A detailed list of every detention the boy had served, and with whom. His marks in every class. It was a wealth of information about the young, bespectacled Physics teacher, and it was all sitting here atop Severus Snape's desk.

The medical records showed normal height and weight until he reached the age of eight. Then it seemed that the Potter child just...stopped growing normally. Upon entering Hogwarts, Potter was right where he was supposed to be in height -- he stood at 157 cm (approximately 5'2") -- but only weighed 6 stone 4 lbs (86lbs), almost two stones underweight for his height. What had caused such a drastic change in only three years? Severus wondered.

He flipped over to the next insert, recognising Poppy Pomfrey's neat writing:

**_Potter, Harry_**_,_ the insert read,  
_age: 11 yrs 1.5 mos  
- requires new glasses: current frames broken, lenses are an outdated prescription  
- is drastically underweight for age and height  
- has numerous, worrying food allergies and intolerances: cannot consume meat, shellfish, or dairy; foods high in fat, sugar, and preservatives make him ill  
- refuses to talk about his homelife -- referral to Dr. Gilderoy Lockhart for counselling may be necessary_

If the situation had not been so shocking, Severus might have snorted at the idea of _Gilderoy Lockhart _cosy-ing up with students to talk about their _feelings_. But as it was, Severus could find no pleasure in the ridiculousness of that notion when the evidence of Potter's abusive homelife was staring him head on in the face:

**_Full Body Physical Revealed:_**_  
- unusual scarring present around the ribs and stomach area  
- thin scars present across the back in a criss-cross formation; scars are in various states of healing (some look to be 2-3 yrs old, but some may be as recent as a few mos prior)  
- peculiar bruising present across left hipbone and right inner thigh  
- bruising at the collarbone and clavicle both sides_

Severus felt ill. He knew what 'thin scars' in a 'criss-cross formation' typically meant: he'd dealt with an abusive Muggle father himself. He knew _as well _what bruising at the hipbones and inner thighs meant: the boy had been sexually assaulted, or at least harassed, with hands where they should not have been clenching so hard that they had left marks Potter's pretty white flesh.

Hand trembling slightly, Severus turned the page. On it was a letter from Dr. Gilderoy Lockhart, PhD and LCSW, stating that Potter '_is not receptive to conversation centring on the Dursleys or the life he had prior to attending Hogwarts._' Lockhart had gone on to say that Potter was perfectly happy to talk about his mother, but he never once mentioned his father...or anything that happened after age eight. It was like they hit '_a mental barrier_' when Lockhart asked about anything post Lily's death.

Severus turned the page and gave a slight start upon seeing his _own_ handwriting on its creamy, lined surface. It was dated **_12th February 1994. _**Potter's third year. When he and Muggle Severus had begun to get along, Severus remembered vaguely.

_Harry still seems unnaturally jumpy,_ Muggle Severus had written, _and refuses point-blank to talk about what happened over the break. His relapse was far less painful, this time, however. Draco, Poppy, and I keep close tabs on him. Through our aid, his schoolwork has been improving and he has begun to eat a little more; it is difficult, however, with his limited list of foods. We are looking into some sort of supplemental enzyme that will allow him to eat a wider range of foods without becoming ill. _

Severus' head was spinning with the breadth of information in that simple paragraph. Something had happened over break in Potter's 3rd year -- something that had caused a 'relapse' of some sort that, while it was 'far less painful' than perhaps others Potter had suffered through, had still shaken the boy enough to cause his grades to drop. He had apparently stopped eating for a spell as well.

Self-imposed starvation was not unheard of as a means of dealing with stressful times; Severus had dealt with a handful of anorexic and bulimic students over the course of his years as Head of Slytherin House. His students had fallen into stereotypes, however -- Pansy and Daphne had been driven, hardworking, ambitious children of Dark Supporters, and as such they strove to do anything necessary to garner the love of their parents; Theodore, Tristan, and Adrienne had felt such pressure (from every angle) to epitomise perfection that they just temporarily seemed to forget that not eating was an imperfection in and of itself.

And while Harry might have fallen into these typecasts they played, Severus was not yet so sure he was ready to lump the boy in with that lot.

It was entirely possible that Harry starved himself -- for love, perhaps, or attention, or even the terrifying desire to disappear. But it was much more likely, given what Severus knew of the twenty-two-year-old man Harry had become, that the starvation was forced upon him...most likely by the Dursleys.

Just as Severus was wondering why Harry was never removed from the Dursleys' care if the school had gathered ample evidence that the boy was being abused, the doorbell rang.

Severus quickly closed the Potter Dossier and re-filed it, neatened himself up a bit, and then went to answer the door.

He should have known.

There -- in a black button-down shirt and what had to be the most lived-in pair of jean trousers Severus had ever seen -- stood Harry Potter, an embarrassed half-smile on his face and those stupid Birkenstock sandals on his feet.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

"You haven't been answering my texts," Harry said, sitting awkwardly on the couch.

"Your texts?" Severus asked with a frown.

"Yes," Harry said softly, picking at a stray thread in his jeans. "On your mobile. I sent you several text messages."

Severus' frown deepened. "Potter," he sighed, "I did not even know I had a mobile, let alone one that received...text messages."

Harry looked at least a little happier at that. "Well, you do. It's usually in the inside pocket of your briefcase. Although, by now it's most likely dead." Severus did not even bother asking how a mobile phone could die. Perhaps the man meant its battery? "And...my emails, sir? Were you ignoring those as well?"

"I haven't been on the webmail server in over three weeks," Severus admitted. "Once I was no longer teaching, it did not seem to occur to me to check."

"Ah." Harry pursed his lips in thought. Unconsciously, Severus followed the motion intensely. "I reckoned you were unconscionably angry with me and so I gave it another week," Harry confessed. "But when you kept ignoring them, I thought I'd better come on down and have a look. Make sure you hadn't offed yourself or something. Or died spectacularly in a freak...cooking accident." He cleared his throat. "I wanted to apologise, you know, but there's no sense apologising to a corpse."

"So I have heard," Severus deadpanned with a nod. "I believe there is an old Chinese Proverb saying as much."

"Right." Harry couldn't stand it anymore, it seemed, for he suddenly leaned forward and said, "Look, sir, I'm sorry -- what I said, it was horrible. I had no right to act like that...as though I'd had you sussed when maybe I haven't yet. I was just upset, and -- "

"Hush," Severus murmured. "You are getting excited again. Whenever you get excited, you become uppity, and then when you are uppity I somehow end up with a migraine that takes me three extra-strength Paracetamol to be rid of."

"But sir," Harry tried again, looking almost too young in his desperation. "I'm trying to say -- "

"I know, Potter," Severus replied.

Harry sighed, face falling back into his usual passive expression. "I'd just thought..."

Severus froze. "I swear to Merlin, Potter, if you plan to finish that sentence '_-- that I'd lost you forever_' I will have you out that door so fast the existence of your supposedly tried and true Laws of Physics will be called into question."

Harry coloured slightly and said, "I wasn't going to say that, either."

Severus snorted. "Right."

"So...what now, sir?" Harry asked.

Severus grimaced slightly, looking at the man next to him on this couch -- how beautiful he was, how perplexing -- and how Severus now knew far more about him than Harry probably wanted anyone to know. The least he could do was give the younger man the courtesy of calling him by his first name. "Now...you call me Severus," he said finally.

"...sir?" Harry questioned.

"No, you see, that is precisely what I do not wish to be called." He sighed again. "I wish to be called Severus."

Now it was Harry's turn to snort. "And what about me? Am I still 'Potter' to you?"

Severus looked the man over -- up and down, every minute detail -- and said, "No. You are not 'Potter' any longer." Severus paused, much too fascinated with Harry's razor-thin wrists. "You are not 'Potter' at all."

Harry was gazing up at him. "Does that bother you, sir?" he breathed.

"I told you to call me Severus," Severus mumured.

Harry's breathing hitched. "Does that bother you...Severus?" he asked again.

Severus scrutinised him for a long moment, tilting his head slightly to get a better angle, narrowing his eyes for a better focus. He shook his head. "No," he said simply.

Harry met his eyes challengingly and then a smile broke across his face. "Severus," he said, "have you ever been to the cinema?"

Severus glared. "No, I have not," he replied in a tone that spoke clearly what he thought of Harry's idea.

Harry ignored his sullenness. "Get changed into something more casual," Harry said. How predictable. "We're going to see a film."

Severus grouchily got up and went to his room to change. He would go along with this, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to be a grumpy bugger.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

When they left the theatre, Harry was grinning. Severus was scowling.

"But didn't you think it was adorable?" Harry asked. "I mean, Hugh Grant is just so...well...charmingly befuddled!"

"He was kind of an arse in this one, I must say." Severus sneered. "And besides, it was downright kitschy. He teaches the boy how to be cool and the boy teaches him how to _grow up_ -- how much more ridiculous and clichéd can you get?"

Harry shrugged. "Well..." he said softly. "There's always this." He leaned over and kissed Severus lightly on the lips. "I mean, that's pretty ridiculous and clichéd as well, don't you think?"

Severus froze. Harry had just kissed him. Harry Potter had just kissed him. Severus' mind was going 1,000,000 kilometres per second...he felt as though he were in one of Harry's circular motion problems: _Severus is riding a horsey on the roundabout, going 7 m/s, until a huge ton of bricks falls out of the sky and knocks him off the roundabout at a point 60-degrees relative to the horizontal. In which direction will he fall, and...**will he still be breathing when it's over?**_

Severus swallowed and looked away. "Po-- _Harry_," he said stiffly, "I am not ready."

Harry nodded, a little downcast but completely understanding. "Okay," he said simply.

"Okay?" Severus repeated dubiously. "It is truly 'okay' with you."

"Yes," Harry said warmly."It's truly okay. Besides, this'll be good for me. It's a lesson in patience for me too."

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

A/N: I almost jipped you on this one! Sorry, guys. I wanted it to be perfect, and it still isn't to my satisfaction, but sometimes...you just gotta let the babies out of the nest!

Reviews have been wonderful. You lot are such dolls.


	5. Part V

**Summary:** AU. Instead of dying, Severus' soul is sent to a place he thought impossible - into the body of himself in another world. It's a world free of Dark Lords and debts to Dumbledore, but it bears a catch: no magic. SSHP slash.  
**Rating:** PG-15  
**Pairing:** SS/HP (main); mentions of past SS/LE, HP/GW, and JP/LE; mentions of unrequited DM/HP  
**Warnings:** swearing, slash, non-magic, brief mention of past abuse  
**Disclaimer:** I only wish this universe belonged to me.

**Author's note: **A couple things (again) --  
1) Still that 'mention of abuse' warning I had last chapter…it's Harry and Severus talking about it this time, though, and it's just the briefest of details.

2) One of the reviewers mentioned that Severus' change of heart at the end of Part IV was a little sudden and confusing, and I completely agree. That was a very puzzling ending and I don't think I adequately communicated what I meant to. I want to clarify: Severus didn't suddenly just start liking Harry. It was more a matter of respect for him after all he'd been through, and the idea that he'd overcome all of it. He was willing to suffer through Muggle cinema because Harry wanted to and Severus was curious as well, but that was it. And the kiss was not Severus suddenly admitting his feelings for Harry, either -- it was an acknowledgment that Harry cared too deeply, more deeply than Severus did and while he might have been able to eventually be with Harry, he couldn't see himself with Harry then. And that's where this part comes in. There's still a lot of growing to do, and hopefully this part communicates it better! That's one reason I didn't like that chapter. In other words, face-palm. Sorry for the confusion.

3) One more part after this one -- the epilogue! We're getting very near the end! Get pumped.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

_A Lesson in Patience_  
Part V

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

Neither man spoke of the kiss, though Severus could tell it was as much on Po--_Harry's_ mind as it was on his. Some weeks passed without event...Severus continued with his studies and Harry went about his daily business of biking, school, marking problem sets, and cooking dinner. Sometimes Severus spent time at Harry's house; sometimes Harry spent time at Severus'. Most nights, however, they spoke on the phone.

It had started as something foolish: Harry rang Severus up for help with a terrible essay he was meant to grade, though Severus could tell it was just an excuse to get him to pick up since Harry had obviously had ample experience marking wretched essays.

Severus didn't see why Potter could not have just dropped by so they could have had a look together, but maybe it was better this way -- it opened up an entire new world of late-night phone calls about things both trivial and thought-provoking.

And in regards to the essay, Severus certainly had gotten a laugh out of this one.

"I just don't understand it," Harry said, and Severus could tell he was frowning even without seeing the man's face. "Wallers is usually such a good writer, but this reads as if he just dashed it out in between classes."

"Or under the influence of rather potent sleeping medication," Severus reasoned.

"I mean," Harry said briskly, "Apart from the spelling mistakes, it's not so terrible a sentence. The vocabulary choices leave something to be desired...and don't even get me started on the grammar. But once one gets past all that -- "

"_If_ one gets past all that, Mr. Potter," Severus corrected. "If I were marking such an essay, I would mark it a 'D.'"

Harry was shocked. "A 'D,' Severus? But that seems too harsh. I'd give it a 'C' at the lowest."

Severus frowned. "A 'C'?" he asked. "What is a 'C'?" Then he remembered. "Ah, that is right. You do not use the same grading system that we do. For us, a 'D' would mean _Dreadful,_ which that essay most certainly is."

Harry laughed, and it was the prettiest sound Severus had heard in days. For some reason, that annoyed Severus greatly. "I see," Harry said. And what's the rest of the system?"

"O is 'Outstanding,' and it is the highest mark one can achieve. Then comes 'E' for 'Exceeds Expectations,' then 'A' for 'Acceptable,' then 'D' for 'Dreadful' and 'T'...for 'Troll.'"

Harry laughed again. "_Troll_?" he repeated. "What is _troll_?"

"We are a Magical Community. We have both human and non-human sentient beings. Among those creatures are Vampires, Werewolves -- " Severus' lip curled at the thought of Remus Lupin, " -- Goblins, Giants, Trolls, and many others. Trolls, however, are quite dim; any Magical child knows this. So to receive a mark of 'T' implies the student in question has no more ability or intelligence than a common Mountain Troll."

"Well." Harry paused then continued with some humour in his voice, "And do you dole out 'T's quite often?"

"When I see fit," Severus said artfully.

"Hmm," Harry replied. "Well, I fear our marking system is not quite as exciting as yours...and we just recently changed it anyways; we used to use the Standard Grade system for Scotland -- you know, students could earn marks from 1-8. That's how I was graded when I attended. But two years ago they switched over to the National Qualifications system, so that's how I grade now. It's divided into four qualification groups: Advanced Highers, Highers, Intermediate 2, and Intermediate 1. Each group is divided into four lettering marks -- A, B, C, and D. We don't deal much with the Advanced Highers and Highers, really; there are a few students in Seventh Form -- the Quantum Mechanics independent studies kids, if you're curious -- who fall into those categories and are graded as such. But in general we stick to the Intermediates. Passing in Intermediate 2 is the same as getting a _credit _in the old system, and passing in Intermediate 1 is like getting a _general_."

"So, in other words, you are telling me that if I gave Wallers the Wonder Writer a 'D' it would amount to not only a near failure, but a near failure in the middling or lowest possible category possible?"

"That's right."

Severus smiled nastily. "I would say that were cruel if not for the fact that he misspelled three words in the first sentence alone."

Harry sighed. "The thing is, really, if he were Dyslexic or Learning Disabled or something I'd understand completely. But he's not. This is a run-of-the-mill case of schoolboy-cock-uppery. But then again...I'd hate to fail him. It's his first offense. He's never done something like this before."

Severus considered briefly. "What Intermediate is he in?"

"Two."

"Then give him a 'C.' That is not passing, correct? So he would not receive credit, but he is not failing either."

There was the sound of Harry scribbling something down -- notes in the margin, perhaps, as he was writing for too long a time to just be recording a single letter.

"What are you telling this Mr. Wallers?" Severus asked, taking a sip of his tea.

"That if he had put half as much effort into this essay as he did into getting into Miss Jamison's knickers he'd have made an 'A,' easy."

Severus spat out his tea all over the table. "_What_?" he demanded. "Are you out of your head, Potter?!"

"Hmm?" Harry said innocently, still writing. "I didn't quite catch that."

"You aren't serious."

"About what?"

"About..." Severus shook his head, grabbing a dishtowel to wipe up the tea. "About writing that."

"Unfortunately, no, I'm not," Harry lamented. "I'd likely be sacked over it. More's the pity, though, because you just _know_ it's the truth."

Severus shook his head. Adamantly. "No, no, no," he said vehemently, "students do not have sex lives. They are asexual, sexless beings without desires or the means to act on them."

"What, like Ken dolls?" Harry said playfully.

Severus grimaced. "What are you blathering about? What is a Ken doll?"

Harry laughed again and Severus felt his stomach clench. "I keep forgetting!" he said. "You just seem so..."

"Normal?" Severus hazarded, eyebrows raised.

"No, no, not that." There was a dismissiveness in Harry's voice that simultaneous annoyed and amused Severus. Why was the idea of Severus being normal so preposterous? "More like...you seem so at place here. Like you just fit. It took you barely a week to learn the lay of the land, after all, so I just keep forgetting that you don't know much about this world as it is in the modern age."

That was interesting.

"A Ken doll is an American thing. But in order to know Ken, you have to know Barbie. In the 1950's, this American toy company, Mattel, created dolls called Barbies. Barbie was supposed to be this version of the perfect woman, I guess you could say. She had that perfect 7:10 waist-to-hip ratio and she had well-formed-not-too-big-not-too-small breasts, and she was done up in a modest but attractive amount of makeup. She was very exotic looking, really, with long red or black hair...she looked a lot like Lucille Ball, really, or Tina Aumont. Or if we're looking for modern-day actresses, maybe Mena Suvari?"

"I would not know; I do not watch Muggle cinema," Severus said dryly. "The last film I saw was that Hugh Grant...situation...you forced me into, and it was tolerable at best. Probably would have received a 'C' in the Intermediate 1 level of your confusing grading scale."

Harry snickered. "Well," was all he said.

"But I digress. Do continue," Severus replied.

"So, Barbie needed a boyfriend. Ken was created two years after she was, and he looked...well...like a goody-goody teenager, really. He was slender and tall and had this awful 1950's haircut and no muscle definition to speak of."

Severus, feeling a fresh burst of spite, said, "Oh! So he was built like you!"

But Harry didn't rise to the bait. "Oi, watch it," he said wryly, "I've got muscle alright. I may be little, but I'm strong. I've got abs like you wouldn't believe." He paused, and Severus could just imagine the lecherous smile that was curling onto the young man's face. "If you're good I'll let you touch them sometime."

"_Merlin_, Potter!" Severus exclaimed.

"Oh, come on, Severus, you set yourself up for that one. And why are we back to 'Potter,' now?"

Severus sneered, "When you act like a sexually-charged seventeen-year-old male, I shall refer to you as I did when you were in school. It is only fair."

"Oh, watch it, _Professor_," Harry said sweetly, "I'll bring out my physics pick-up lines."

Severus' gut clenched. "You wouldn't dare," he sneered.

"But I would." Harry put on an innocent, coquettish lilt and said, "Why, sir, those trousers are awfully attractive on you. Of course, they would look even better -- "

"_Potter_," Severus warned.

" -- accelerating at a rate of -9.8 m/s squared towards my bedroom floor," Harry finished spectacularly.

Oh, Merlin. Potter had done it. He had actually gone there. He had turned _physics_ into a matter of..._sexual circumstance._ Only, that made it sound as if the whole scenario were a police investigation, and Severus did not like that either. He grimaced. "Oh dear," he murmured.

"Oh dear indeed," Harry returned. "Shall I continue with Barbie and Ken?"

"Only if it is to tell me they meet a dreadful end, preferably one involving arson or dismemberment of their wretched plastic limbs," Severus said curtly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Just the opposite, actually," Harry said gravely. "The years were good to them. Time wore on and they both become more and more...sexed up. Barbie's waist got smaller and her breasts got bigger; Ken became taller, broader, and more masculine, with sixpack abs and biceps that just looked unhealthy like he was eating Steroid Wheaties for breakfast every morning."

"So, what's the point of all of this?" Severus said dubiously. "If it is just a way for you to come clean about your unfortunate fascination with dolls, you could have just said."

Harry laughed again. "Oh wow," he replied. "No, the point of all this was to tell you that even though Barbie and Ken became more and more...well..._walking sex -- _" Severus snorted -- "as the decades unfurled, one thing stayed the same, always: underneath their clothes, they were blank."

"Blank?" Severus repeated. Sometimes he did not understand Harry's peculiar pattern of speech at all. And it wasn't just that the young man used slang, either, because Severus had spent years teaching brats and he'd never once heard them phrase some of these things the way Harry did.

"Yeah. Blank. Sexless. No 'nasty bits,' if you will. Barbie had no nipples, and Ken looked like he was wearing y-front pants, only they were flesh-coloured. There was nothing there but a lump. Or two lumps, in Barbie's case."

Another thing about Harry that puzzled Severus was the young man's complete comfort with topics like this one. With anyone else, Severus would be revolted to be discussing something so crude as the lack of 'nasty bits' that lay beneath the clothes of an American plastic doll. But somehow Harry made it seem perfectly natural -- as commonplace, perhaps, as discussing the weather. '_Oh, there's meant to be rain today. It's only going to get up to 20 degrees Celsius; quite unusual for this time of year, isn't it? And by the by, Barbie's breasts are nip-free and Ken's package is a flesh-coloured y-front pant get-up.' _Severus winced. How was it that he was actually content to talk about all this with Harry?

"So, you see," Harry was saying, "your students, to you, are like Barbie and Ken. They can look as pretty or as provocative as they please but you're not really fussed with them, because, as far as you're concerned, underneath it all they're just a lot of plastic, sexless dolls."

Well.

"Are you quite finished?" Severus snapped.

"I am, at that," Harry said, and Severus could tell the blasted man was smirking.

"You just wasted twenty minutes of my life, Potter, talking of _Barbie and Ken_," Severus muttered.

"And I didn't even broach the subject of Barbie's little sister Stephanie -- "

"No!" Severus grimaced. "I am quite satisfied with Barbie and Ken, thank you very much. They alone subtracted twenty minutes from my life; I shudder to think how many Stephanie would obliterate."

"You could have hung up the phone at any time," Harry pointed out wryly.

"You'd have just called back," Severus replied, disgusted. "That, or you'd have sulked all night. The only thing worse than a Potter who speaks ceaselessly of Barbie dolls is a Potter who spends the evening wallowing in self-pity when he ought to be marking lab reports."

Harry made a noise that could very well have meant either 'Point taken' or 'Get bent' -- Severus couldn't tell. That was another thing Potter did. He made _noises._ It was all very peculiar with Harry, for one minute he was being profound and the next he was grunting like a Neanderthal. It was all Severus could do to keep up sometimes, because the man went back and forth often without warning. It was fairly impossible to tell what the man was feeling over the phone: one really needed to see Potter's face to know what those noises meant.

"On that note," Severus said, "do you need to get back to it?"

"I can talk for a few minutes more," Harry said. "That is, if you're not desperate to get off the phone."

Severus wasn't, really. Though he'd never admit it, he was rather enjoying this pleasant repartee. "I am content in this predicament," he said, "so long as you, too, are content."

Harry made a soft scoff-like noise that might have been a laugh. "I am 'content in this predicament' as well," he said sardonically.

"Are you mocking me?" Severus demanded, affronted.

Harry made the laugh-scoff noise again and said, "No, Severus, I'm not. You're just..." he sighed. "This 'predicament' is charming," he finished.

Though Severus was certain that was not what Harry originally intended to say, he left it well alone. "How long is it until the end of the school year?" he asked to change the subject.

Harry took the apparent non-sequitur in perfect stride. "Examinations begin next week, actually, and the exam period lasts a week. Then after that, it's two days 'til graduation, and that's it."

"So about two weeks then?"

"Yes."

"After that you are free."

"You make it sound as though I'm caged," Harry said wryly. "Held against my will. Like a bird."

Severus paused as the requisite image of a Potter-Bird came into his head. '_What is the resonant frequency of my chirps of discontentment, Severus?_' Severus shook his head. What was it with him imagining Potter as animals?

"You cannot possibly like working as diligently as you do," Severus pointed out with a frown. "I was a Potions Master in my world. _Master _and _mistress_ in the Wizarding World are not the same titles as they are in the Muggle world; you spoke of Vinita Vector, the Maths Mistress, the other day. You only meant she was the Head of the Maths Department, yes? Well, in the Wizarding World, being a Potions Master does not simply mean I am the 'Head' of the Potions Department at Hogwarts. It means I have gotten my Mastery in Potions -- the Wizarding equivalent of a Doctorate of Sciences, or a Doctorate of Philosophy."

"So, you easily worked as hard as I did," Harry argued.

"Perhaps," Severus said doubtfully, "but only because I had other duties outside of the school. Seeing as true accredited Potions Masters seem to be a dying breed nowadays, my time was sometimes in high demand. But generally, I doubt I had as many responsibilities as you do -- I certainly did not teach three different tracks for each of the Seven Forms with tutoring sessions, seven different lab preparations, and seven different types of problem sets and lab reports to mark on top of it all. That seems...madness."

"Well," Harry said, "I don't teach all seven years -- Physics doesn't start until Fourth Form because we want the students to get Basic Sciences I and II, Biology, and Chemistry -- as well as the adequate Levels of Mathematics -- before they break into the beautiful world of Physics. And even then, the Fourth year students begin with General Conceptual Physics, which presents Physics just in the conceptual format and eliminates the need for them to have already taken Calculus."

"Hold on," Severus said, "I saw on the time-table and the syllabus that there were Seven years of class. And I walked in on your tutoring session with that third year girl."

"The time-table shows all the sciences you teach, Severus. And you teach everything from Basics to Molecular Biology, so it had years One-through-Seven because you teach all of them. Or rather...Other Severus did. And as for Ashley, she's not a third year. She's supposed to be, but she skipped ahead...very advanced for her age," Harry said simply. "She's in my Conceptual class, but I supplement her problem sets with the tutoring sessions because she's just too intelligent for the basics. I've got her doing Sixth year work! I mean, the circular motion problem I had her doing involves Calculus. Very basic Calculus, mind, but...she's _thirteen._"

That was impressive. Severus nodded appreciatively, though he knew Harry could not see him. "What types of Physics do you teach?" he asked curiously.

"Newtonian Physics, mostly. Well, for the Fourth and Fifth years, that is. Once you get to those upper levels, they've had enough math and they've stayed with the course long enough -- I mean, it's an elective, really, it isn't required past the Conceptual level -- so the ones who get to Thermodynamics or Quantum Mechanics or Electromagnetism, like my Sixth and Seventh form advanced students, are the ones who _really_ get it and _really_ want to be there."

Harry stopped for a second, as though gathering his thoughts. When he started up again, his voice was softer, somehow, even though his volume had not changed at all.

"I mean, yes, I work incredibly hard. During Exam periods I run myself absolutely ragged. I sleep barely four hours a night, and that's if I'm lucky. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. I wouldn't ever cancel a tutoring session or ever skip out on marking just because I was exhausted. It means too much to me, and to them. Take Russell Davies for example. He's one of my Fourth Forms and he struggles more than any of the others. And he always comes to each of our tutoring sessions with more questions than I could possibly answer in an hour, but we still try. We take it slow, go step-by-step. And he doesn't always get it all the time but when he does -- it's just the best feeling. His eyes light up and his face splits into this massive grin and he says, 'Oh!' and he looks for a second like he couldn't ever be happier than he is at that moment. I can't even put words to how I feel right then. It's...magic."

_Magic._

Severus felt his face twist into something he would have tried to carefully control had they speaking in person, but such was the strength of his reaction to Potter's declaration that he didn't know if he could have controlled it at all. Potter sounded so extraordinarily proud. So proud to be a teacher, so thrilled with what he did, so appreciative of his students and their dedication. It was such a foreign concept to Severus: he taught Potions because Dumbledore needed a Potions Professor, and because he was working off a debt, and because he was, well, bleeding _brilliant_ at what he did. He never graded a particular good essay and thought to himself, _yes, she got it! _He never stayed after class working on a potion with a struggling student and felt that spark Harry spoke of when it all finally _clicked_.

Suddenly Severus felt a great pressure in his chest. "I see," he managed.

But he didn't. He didn't see at all.

"But here I am, going on and on again," Harry said. "Tell me about Potions."

"Well, what do you want to know?" he asked guardedly.

"Everything," Harry said predictably, and so Severus did.

He spoke for what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes. And Potter didn't interrupt him once. It was hard at first, but once Severus started, he couldn't stop. Potions were something Severus missed terribly: the calming nature of sitting in his lab, doors barred, as he worked on a particularly complicated potion that took so much concentration that Severus could not think of all the awful things that plagued him outside of the dungeons. The Dark Lord, the Headmaster, the Death Eater circle -- all his demons just faded away with the fumes curling and rising from his simmering pewter cauldron. He felt the most at peace when he was brewing.

"...I become another person when I brew," he added. He did not say the clichéd, '_Someone I actually like,_' but they both heard it. "I am calm, diligent, focussed, and completely and utterly immersed in something so much bigger and more complicated than I am. And yet, something far simpler than I could ever hope to be. I suppose I feel that if I can tackle a really difficult potion, take it apart step by step then put it back together again in a flawless final attempt..." he broke off, unable to continue.

But Harry seemed to know. "...then maybe you can dissect and reassemble and flawlessly fix the problems in your life as well," he finished quietly.

And Severus nodded, somehow knowing Harry could see the motion.

"I bet you're beautiful when you brew," Harry said, and his voice was a caress.

Severus could have ceased breathing then. He forced himself to snort and say snidely, "You are being foolish again. Projecting feelings. I am no such thing," but it was only with great effort that he did so. He'd never felt this raw before. Not since Lily, anyway.

Harry made one of his noises, but Severus needed no interpretation this time: it was a strained clearing of the throat, a tense wiry sound that spoke of electricity and spinning too quickly and sky-diving, maybe, or confronting a poisonous python in the middle of the desert when no one else was around to stop you or to tell you, _perhaps not_.

"I don't think so, Severus," he said tightly. "Not this time."

"Perhaps not," Severus murmured aloud.

"Perhaps not," Harry repeated.

And the expression that crossed Severus' very much unguarded face could only be described as delicate.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

What Severus found out very quickly was that Harry said a lot when prompted, but he rather preferred to listen. Their friendly banter was fine enough, but Harry seemed most at peace when he listened to Severus speak -- Severus' voice, Severus' words, Severus' honesty...honesty that he would never have dreamed possible over the phone.

But perhaps the fact that it took place over the phone was the reason why it was so possible. The wire barrier created a feeling of calm, a sensation of safety where Severus could say things he'd never said before -- not even to Lily -- and not fear as much judgment since he did not have to confront Potter's face and Harry's eyes as he said them. And Severus found himself talking. Never before had he been listened to the way Harry listened. Even Lily had had her temper, had gotten distracted, had been too _something or other_ many of the times he thought of telling her his feelings, whatever they were.

But Harry had it. Whatever it was.

That clumsy, clichéd kiss they'd shared outside of the cinema almost a month ago seemed to pale in comparison to how Severus felt now. He hadn't liked Potter then, not really, anyway. Not like this. He'd respected the man, certainly, and felt as though -- now that he knew so much of the man's history -- the least he could do was be respectful, be open to the possibility of affection for Harry, if such a thing was even possible for him. He'd been _noticing_ Harry, too, his physical attributes and his endearing but infuriating habits. And he'd missed Harry when they were not speaking for nearly two months. One could say that Severus had grown fond of Harry.

But this was different. This was not _fondness. _This was a closeness that silly post-cinema kisses could not touch.

Severus looked forward to the nights Harry called and cancelled a dinner date because he had so much to do or the weather was crap, but'_why don't we stay on the line and chat a while instead?_' Severus learned more about Harry (and, admittedly, himself) in those three hour phone conversations than he had in the three months they'd known one another.

For example, Harry did not resent his treatment from the Dursleys. He did not ever want anyone else to go through what he had to, but he still forgave the Dursleys for what they had done to him.

"Why?" Severus asked, appalled. "What they did was incomprehensibly evil. And you're forever marred by it -- you cannot eat normal foods! They starved you to the point where you cannot eat like a normal person! And the beatings...how can you just calmly sit there saying you do not hate them?"

"Because," Harry said, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life consumed with hatred for them. I want to let go of them, forget them, cut that part out of my life completely and just go on with everything. But if I don't forgive them first, it isn't 'letting go': it's repressing. I don't want to repress, I want to be free."

Well.

Severus had spent the rest of the night thinking about Tobias. Then he'd spent the next day thinking of him as well. The next night on the phone, he'd told Harry about the man, about everything he did -- how he tortured Severus and Eileen, hit the bottle then beat them bloody. Severus spoke of how he had _loathed_ the man; how he'd entertained fantasies of murdering Tobias in his sleep, even, such was Severus' hatred for Tobias and the abuse. And the guilt -- the awful, gut-rending guilt --

Severus spoke and spoke until his voice grew hoarse, and then he spoke some more.

And then when he was done, it felt like the knot that had been in his stomach for years, impossibly tangled and steely-hard, had just gotten a little softer and a little easier to bear. He couldn't forgive Tobias yet. But with telling Harry came the acknowledgment that, _no_, how Severus had grown up was _not _normal and it was _not_ acceptable to treat a child and wife as Tobias had...and it was _not Severus' fault_ for not being able to stop it happening.

It was funny -- all the things he'd told his abused Slytherins over the years suddenly felt true for him in a way they never had before Harry had said them.

And then Harry just said, "I'm here," and it was everything Severus needed.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

Severus wondered if they were ever going to address in person the things they discussed over the phone, but he found time and time again that they did not. The conversations were easy and low-key, but just as wonderful. When the school year came to a close, two days before graduation, Harry had Severus over for tea.

"I'm sorry I've been so sparse lately," Harry said, pouring out two cuppas.

"You look like shit," Severus said frankly and without preamble.

Harry wrinkled his nose. "Wow, thanks. Quite a compliment coming from a man who never goes outside." He relented. "I suppose I have missed a bit of sleep here and there," he admitted grudgingly.

"A bit? Try _five_ _hours_ here and there," Severus said with a snort.

Harry ignored him. "It's just exams and all. I wrote all of the Physics exams, and that should have been enough for Dumbledore, but no, he's the type of Head who likes to have his teachers come in and proctor all the other subjects' examinations, too."

Oh, Albus Dumbledore; what a man! "Never misses an opportunity, does he?" Severus asked grimly.

Harry took a sip of tea and made a noise of agreement. "Not in your world either, then?"

"Not even a bit. If there is something that can be meddled with, chances are he's already meddled with it beyond recognition."

Harry laughed. "That does sound like Dumbledore."

"So after graduation, you are finished?" Severus asked.

"Free as a bird," Harry said theatrically, and then he smiled and Severus felt his own lips twitch treacherously.

He looked down at his hands to avoid such things. "I suppose you will have more time then."

"I will," Harry said.

"After you catch up on some much needed sleep, we should perhaps go to the cinema again," Severus said, going for nonchalance and not quite succeeding. He cleared his throat. _Right_.

Harry looked bemused. "But you hate Muggle cinema," he said. His eyes narrowed and his lips curled slowly into a smile.

"Yes," Severus said.

"So...why would you sit through something you dislike like that?" Harry was peering at him like he was a fascinatingly complex potion, or perhaps a Physics problem he could not simply solve in his head. Severus' breath caught slightly and so to regain control he caught Harry by the wrist.

"Because, you idiot," he grumbled, "you like Muggle cinema, and I like you. And that makes up for my active dislike for Muggle cinema."

Harry looked down to Severus' hand clutching his wrist, perhaps thinking of the first time they met and how Severus had grabbed him then as well, just as fiercely but not as lovingly. "You mean your like for me is directly proportional to your dislike of Muggle cinema," he said wickedly, leaning in.

"You are what the kids would call a '_nerd_,' Harry Potter," Severus remarked.

"Just once I'd like to hear you say my name without an insult preceding it," Harry said, and his tongue snaked out to wet his chapped lips.

"Yes," agreed Severus, but he made no move to rectify the situation.

Instead he kissed Harry Potter full on the lips, and it was nothing short of magical.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

A/N: I hope you liked it! There will be one more part, the epilogue. And then we're done. You guys are the best. I say that every chapter, but I mean it. Every chapter.


	6. Epilogue

**Summary:** AU. Instead of dying, Severus' soul is sent to a place he thought impossible - into the body of himself in another world. It's a world free of Dark Lords and debts to Dumbledore, but it bears a catch: no magic. SSHP slash.  
**Rating:** PG-15  
**Pairing:** SS/HP (main); mentions of past SS/LE, HP/GW, and JP/LE; mentions of unrequited HP/DM  
**Warnings:** swearing, slash, non-magic, brief mention of past abuse  
**Disclaimer:** I only wish this universe belonged to me.

**Author's note:** It's finally over. It ends kind of strangely -- sorry about that. But at least this way you get some closure. I kind of wanted to just end it last chapter, but this was good for me to do. I tried to make it work. We shall see! I should tell you that I have another Harry and Severus fic (a mentor-fic, though, no slash) that I am in the process of writing now. Keep your eyes open for it.  
And heeeere we go!

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

_A Lesson in Patience_  
EPILOGUE

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

The first time Severus saw Harry's room it was not a passing-glance-stumble-forward-tumble-onto-the-bed-in-the-throes-of-passion type "saw" as one might have expected. Harry took him gently by the hand and led him through the threshold and into his small -- but not too small -- bedroom. Harry flicked on the lights and took a good look around, musing about how different Harry's room was from the rest of the house.

For one thing, there were seven photographs in simple wooden frames sitting comfortably atop his dresser. Upon closer inspection Severus saw that there was only one of Lily and James together. Three of the other six were pictures of Lily with Harry when he was quite young: two of Lily holding him as a baby, looking so lovingly at her newly-born son, and one of Lily holding his hand in the middle of a park. Harry looked to be no older than seven (which certainly fit with the timeline) and had a very cross expression on his young, bespectacled face. He had probably been dragged there without his express consent, Severus thought amusedly.

The final two photographs were of Harry and his friends from Hogwarts, it appeared. The first was Harry and Ron Weasley: Weasley had his arm slung about Harry's shoulders and was smiling brightly at the camera; Harry, however, was staring off into space with a smile on his face as well, though the smile was significantly understated compared to Weasley's.  

The final photo was of Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger. It was obviously a candid shot as neither one was looking at the camera in the slightest and it appeared as though Draco had picked Miss Granger up to twirl her around, and they'd surreptitiously been photographed mid-spin. Their upper bodies clad in heavy winter coats and colourful scarves, they were flushed and laughing and surrounded by snowflakes that Severus knew would be falling if it weren't a Muggle photograph.

It was quite lovely, really, once one got over the fact that Draco Malfoy did not belong with Hermione Granger.

"I thought he was in love with you?" Severus questioned, picking up the photograph and peering at Harry inquiringly.

Harry shrugged. "I don't know one way or the other," he said. "He tried to kiss me once at a drunken Christmas party at uni, but that was as far as it went. He had a girlfriend and they seemed legitimate and completely in love." The slightest of smiles crossed Harry's face. "I never questioned it; sexuality is such a fluid concept that pigeonholing him into 'straight' or 'queer' just didn't seem fair of me."

"And what of you?" Severus asked. "Do you have a label?"

Harry narrowed his eyes in thought. "You're the only man I've ever loved, so I don't think I'm actually a sausage jockey...not deep down, anyway. I dated women all my life and I was certainly attracted to them."

"Did you ever love them?" Severus asked, walking around the room to see what other hidden treasures it held.

"One of them," Harry said. He sat casually on the bed. "Ginny Weasley."

"Unsurprising," Severus muttered. "You two were joined at the hip in my world."

Harry smiled wryly. "Well, we were joined at the hip here too. It was meant to be perfect -- the storybook, fairy tale type love. But after a couple years of that...she found someone else. And now they're happily married."

"Do you hold any grudge towards her?"

"Not really, no," Harry replied. "It's not like she cheated. Had she been screwing around on me I would have resented her, but she was classier than that: she broke it off with us before it got to the point of infidelity with Dean. It was a nice clean break, and we're still friends to this day."

Severus was musing over this when he noticed the painting near Harry's closet, and the painting just about took his breath away. "What...is that?" Severus breathed, entranced, even though he saw perfectly well what it was. It was a beautiful piece of art depicting two androgynous people kissing -- and what made it all the more breath-taking was the fact that it was done entirely in Technicolor and it looked very much like it was computer generated even though it wasn't. Each bit of paint resembled pixels on a computer screen, and to step close to it and see that no, in fact, the people were _not_ the product of some sort of editing software made the work all the more impressive.

"That?" Harry said, standing fluidly and walking over to stand by Severus. "That is the painting Ron gave me when I told him I was in love with you. He initially freaked out, you see -- Ron's not the most open-minded of blokes, and so when I finally opened up and said that I had a massive crush on you, he said, 'You're a pouf? You're a bloody queen? Does that mean you _watch_ me when I _change_?' It took forever to convince him that, no, I wasn't I pouf...I just liked one man. And really, even if I were a pouf there would be nothing wrong with it. And then I reassured him that, no, I didn't watch him when he changed because I wasn't attracted to him. Liking other blokes doesn't immediately make you attracted to _every single bloke_ within a ten kilometre radius, I said, any more than liking women meant he wanted to get with every woman he saw.

"So he thought that over for a month or so and when he was finally done being a prat, he apologised by painting me that. It was his way of saying without words that love was love no matter whom it was with, and that he'd love me no matter who I played tonsil hockey with."

Severus looked at the painting, restraining the urge to touch it just to see if it was really real. "Ron Weasley painted this," he repeated dubiously.

Harry narrowed his eyes again. "Yes."

"But Weasley is just so -- " _bumbling,_ Severus wanted to say. _Bumbling and volatile and shallow, and much too impatient to dedicate the attention to detail that is necessary for something this incredible._

Harry frowned deeply. "Just so what, Severus?" he asked.

"Energetic," Severus said as diplomatically as he could. "I simply never pictured him as the sit down, paint-for-hours type of man."

"Well," Harry said briskly, "he is. I mean, he's reckless as arse when he isn't painting -- always rushing about trying to finish homework assignments that he'd had weeks to complete, being exceedingly dangerous when he plays rugby... But when he sits down to paint, things like _that_ happen." Harry pondered the piece for a moment. "It's actually one of four paintings in a series. He called it the 'Touch Series.' One has two women, one has two men, one has a man and a woman, and then this one. Androgyny. This one is my favourite if only because he did it _for_ me, but I really adore the one with two women as well, because the woman on top is touching her lover's lips in this aching sort of way. And their hair is covering their eyes but...you just know how they'd look if you could see them."

That was when Severus couldn't take it anymore, so he reached out and touched Harry's lips just so, with fingers as light as a soap bubble and lips just as achingly soft. That was when the tumbling, throes of passion type "seeing of Harry's room" came into play, but Severus was not really in a place to examine the room, seeing as he could scarcely take his eyes off of Harry.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

Severus thought about Harry's talk of labels, sometimes, as he watched the thin man get up in the morning and walk casually around the room as if it were perfectly commonplace to parade about the house in the nude. It was times like those when Severus wondered, really, about his own labels -- those given to him by vicious peers and abusive parents over the years, and those he owned and took responsibility for without the coercion of others.

He's been so many things in his life: a Death Eater, a Spy, a halfblood, a Prince. Snivellus. Severus. A disappointment. Weak. Ugly. Cold. Cruel. Vicious. And perhaps the one that was hardest to let go of: That Boy Who Was in Love with Lily Evans.

The others he took in stride. Yes, he was a reformed Death Eater. Yes, he was Dumbledore's spy. His pure Prince veins were quite obviously coursing with Muggle-marred blood. And who could forget what Potter and Black christened him the moment he stepped on the Hogwarts Express thirty-one years ago? He was not so old yet that he did not recall the constant taunts he endured throughout his Hogwarts career. He was certain he'd be able to recall them even on his deathbed.

But Lily...Lily was The One, if Severus were to take stock in such foolishness. He'd never stopped loving her, craving her, _needing_ her in a way that drove him mad to think on. He felt nothing for the countless, other women he had slept with over the years, for every time he had sex with someone he closed his eyes and imagined Lily. Lily's hands on his bare chest. Lily's lips on his rigid cock. Lily. Lily. Lily.

He had shrouded himself in that unrequited, impossible tongue-tied love Harry spoke of...he had cloaked himself in the assumption that he would love her forever. Until his dying day. No holds barred and no questions asked. That there was _no one else_, and to even considerloving another person would be insult to her memory. And so as he spent each night making love to Harry -- spent each day looking at him, longing for him, loving him as boundlessly as he'd loved Lily -- while it did not feel wrong that he was making love to _her son_ (though that detail shook him up as well), it felt wrong that he was with another person with whom he no longer imagined Lily's face when they made love.

It was so peculiar -- making love to Harry and only wanting him. Not Lily. Not anymore.

He supposed it helped that the man was so impossibly thin and delicate looking -- that his eyes were so startlingly green and his expressions calm, and his manner grounded in a way that so effortlessly held a candle to his mother's. Severus convinced himself for weeks that he only loved Harry because he was some peculiar reincarnation of his mother...that this was not really breaking his sworn oath to love Lily Evans forever if her son was so much like her. But he was quickly realising that it wasn't like that at all. That Harry and Lily had key differences, and Severus loved Harry all the more for them. That, despite Harry's slight frame and almost effeminate looks, he was a _Man_, and Severus liked that Manhood. A great deal.

Harry's hard, lean body against his felt right in a way that no woman's ever had, and the patience and strength Harry maintained in every interaction was unlike anything Severus had ever had before...even with Lily. And that was the clincher.

So it was all this that caused Severus to wonder about labels, and which ones would persist and which ones would fall away.  

Harry already knew about Severus' history as a Death Eater and a Spy, but it did not feel quite yet like Severus was allowed to divest himself of those. But the others...

He did not feel weak or ugly with Harry. Never a disappointment. Had no desire to be cruel. And though he was still cold at times, for that was his nature and old habits die hard, Harry could bring him out of it or give him some much-needed space if that was what Severus preferred. Harry knew what he needed. And though it took a long time, Severus slowly (week by week, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute), _agonisingly_ let his love for Lily fall away...slip from his shoulders and collect in a rumpled heap (-9.8 m/s-squared) on Harry's bedroom floor.  He now stood before Harry an uncloaked, unclothed man, and that's when Harry enveloped him in those strong, toned arms and --

-- and Severus no longer felt naked, even when he wasn't wearing a stitch.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

They sat at Severus' kitchen table one evening, Harry poring over a Physics text and Severus leafing through Muggle Severus' psychopharmacology notes.

"This is complete nonsense," Severus said grimly.

"Oh?" Harry said, not taking his glance from the text in front of him.

"Indeed. I think Dumbledore is better off keeping the Biology, Biochemistry, and Psychopharmacology teachers he currently has employed."

"Not Chemistry, then?" Harry asked, and Severus could see his lips curving into a smile.

"Not Chemistry," Severus said with conviction. "Chemistry I can do -- I've such a good grasp on it that I could practically rewrite the textbook into something more comprehensive and easily understood." He added after a moment, "I think I shall teach Chemistry. It is something I am good at."

"True," Harry said slyly, "but being nice to the students is not."

Severus wrinkled his nose. "I am no harsher than they deserve. Besides, they could use with a bit of harsh treatment -- it builds character. Helps them grow thicker skin."

Harry smiled and looked him straight in the eye. "You're holding out for that moment, aren't you," he said deviously.

"What moment?" Severus replied. "What are you going on about? Honestly, I can hardly understand you half the time -- "

"That moment," Harry cut in, effectively ending Severus' tirade, "when you watch a struggling student finally get it and you just feel incredible. You're waiting for your burst of magic."

Severus was thinking snidely about how he already had his magic, and he'd be putting it to good use, too -- like doing the dishes with a mere flick of his wand, for example -- if not for the fact that Harry did not let him. But then the more Severus thought about, the more he realised Harry was right: he had never felt that and he was so jealous that Harry had. And anything Harry could do, well, Severus could do as well. And better.

So he said at length, "I would not be averse to such an experience," and watched as Harry's face softened again and the smile became oh-so-sweet.

"It'll happen," Harry murmured, leaning in a couple centimetres. "You're a great teacher, Sev."

"Am I?" Severus replied equally quietly, because to speak too loudly felt like a sin when Harry was so tantalisingly close.

Harry nodded. "Yes, you are."

"Then why has it not happened yet?"

"Because you were never trying for it before," Harry said simply, as though that explained everything.

"Ah, but Harry," Severus said shrewdly, "a watched cauldron never boils."

"Perhaps not," Harry said. "But all that means is you can't try _too_ hard...you have to try the right amount. You stay attuned, aware that it may happen...and when it does you react accordingly. When you see it begin to bubble, you keep an eye on it. Watch it close. Adjust the flame up or down depending on what the 'potion' needs."

"In other words," Severus muttered with a frown, "I will have to make certain not to become too...ah..._excited_ when I work with dunderheads who do not understand the first thing about chemistry."

"Just so," Harry replied softly. "And you should refrain from calling them dunderheads, too. In fact, refraining from all derogatory comments would be advised."

"Then how shall I address them?" Severus asked sarcastically. "By their _first names_?"

"If you can manage it," Harry said with a laugh.

"Don't get smart with me, Potter," Severus growled.

Harry licked his lips. Severus' eyes narrowed in on the movement. The air between them was charged with particles upon particles of raw need and sexual tension.

Harry whispered, "No, I'm not 'getting smart'. If I were 'getting smart' I'd do something like this -- "

And in that moment Severus was eternally grateful to have found such a smart boyfriend.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

**_Some months later_**

"Miss Winters did not cry in our tutoring session today," Severus said, divesting himself of his shirt and trousers and slipping beneath the sheets.

"Good on her!" Harry said in mock congratulations, as if that were some huge accomplishment. Which, Severus supposed, Harry probably thought it was.

"I did not call her any names, either," Severus went on to say.

"Well, good on _you_," Harry said approvingly.

"I am beginning to think that moment of magic shall never come," Severus said grimly, pointedly ignoring how Harry mocked him in favour of sharing his insecurities. "I am simply not _nice_ enough for it."

Harry rolled over on the bed, entangling his limbs with Severus' and placing his head on Severus' bare chest. "Not so," he said softly. "You're nice to me."

"You're not a snivelling third year," Severus pointed out snidely.

Harry ran his fingers down the length of Severus' chest, his broad shoulders, his left arm...traced the Dark Mark lightly and repositioned himself so he could kiss it.  Reassure Severus that it was okay, in the past, and there was nothing to forgive. "No, I'm not," he agreed. "But it still takes effort to be nice to me sometimes. We just have to keep constantly working at it."

Severus looked at Harry seriously. "Harry," he asked, "Do you ever feel like this is too turbulent, that we are too volatile to make this work long-term?

"No," Harry said simply, "because we're getting better at it every day. It'll never be effortless or easy, but it'll always be exciting." He grinned. "Besides, it helps us increase out tolerance for what you would refer to as 'getting too excited.' This isn't impossible, Sev -- we just have to love each other and keep on being patient with one another. And really, the rest will just fall into place."

Severus kissed Harry's forehead gently and thought to himself that he'd finally acquired a new label -- Severus Snape: the man who had fallen in love with Harry Potter. And perhaps Harry Potter had acquired a new label as well: the only person to teach Severus a much-needed lesson in patience.

Severus brought his lips down to meet Harry's and --

-- like clockwork and electric wires, and broken fluorescent light bulbs -- flipping a switch, turning a key. Adrenaline rushes and coin-operated aeroplanes. Alcoholic orange peels thrown into a fire, or a sappy romance novel...a film with Hugh Grant and his charmingly befuddled smiles. Red balloons catching on the branch of a nearby tree. _Stars._ Millions and millions of stars. Quantum Mechanics and the sun's fusion, and rock candy sulphuric acid snowflakes colliding into black holes and unbalanced balance beams -- the force of attraction between two like masses -- a child holding a loaded gun --

Like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and every irrefutable Newtonian Law of Physics -- and everything elsethat was so simultaneously expected and unknown -- there was a spark and then an explosion.

And everything just clicked.

**_-Fin-_**

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

A/N: Thank you guys for staying with it and leaving all those encouraging (and constructive) reviews. It means so much to me. You are amazing.  


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